Look for repeated pain
Good first workflows recur often enough to measure and frustrate the team enough that people have already invented workarounds. Shared spreadsheets, forwarded emails, and manual status checks are useful clues.
Avoid the highest-consequence decision first
The first workflow should touch a meaningful outcome without requiring the system to make irreversible legal, clinical, financial, or employment decisions. Automate preparation and routing before final judgment.
Score the opportunity
Estimate volume, labor time, delay cost, error cost, system complexity, exception rate, and data sensitivity. A promising workflow has a clear owner and a baseline you can compare after launch.
Define a thin end-to-end path
Improve one complete path from intake to recorded outcome. A narrow workflow that reaches production teaches more than a large demonstration that never meets real edge cases.