When more automation hides a broken user journey

Automation is not the enemy. Losing the plot is. Teams celebrate coverage percentages while a checkout, onboarding, or approval path still fights the person it was built for.

I start with the business question: what must a user complete for us to have earned the release? Then I ask which of those journeys we have actually exercised — by a human, with real data, on a surface that matters.

Technical checks still run. I often accelerate them with AI so they do not consume the week. They sit behind the mission, not in front of it.

A useful smell test: if your dashboard is green and Product still hesitates, you are measuring the wrong thing. Fix the journey evidence first; then let automation guard the regressions you already understand.

Serve the user. Protect the business decision. Automate what remains. That order is the whole point.