The Workaround You Invented in 2019 Is Now Load-Bearing

You added a column to a spreadsheet in 2019. Quick fix. The system wasn't tracking something you needed — maybe returns by reason, maybe lead source, maybe which supplier actually delivered on time. So you added a column and started filling it in manually.

That column is still there. Someone fills it in every day. It feeds into a report you review weekly. Decisions get made based on it.

Nobody remembers it started as a workaround.

Workarounds calcify

The problem isn't that the fix was bad. It probably wasn't. It solved a real problem with the tools you had at the time.

The problem is what happens next.

The workaround sticks around. It gets embedded into a process. Someone new joins, learns the process, assumes this is how it's supposed to work. They train the next person the same way. Within eighteen months, the workaround isn't a workaround anymore. It's infrastructure.

And infrastructure that nobody knows is a workaround doesn't get questioned. It just gets maintained.

The real cost isn't the time

Yes, someone's spending twenty minutes a day on that manual column. That adds up. But that's not the expensive part.

The expensive part is what you're not seeing:

Decisions based on incomplete data. That column captures what someone remembers to enter. It doesn't capture what happens when they're busy, or what happens before their shift, or the edge cases they're not sure how to categorise. You're making decisions on a sample that's worse than you think.

Processes built around a limitation that no longer exists. The system that couldn't track lead source in 2019 probably can now. Or there's an integration that would do it automatically. But nobody's checked because nobody remembers it was ever a limitation.

New tools inheriting old constraints. You bought a new CRM last year. Migrated all the data. Including the manual column. Including the process of filling it in by hand. The new system could do this automatically, but you'd have to notice the opportunity first.

How to spot load-bearing workarounds

They don't announce themselves. You have to go looking.

Pick a process that feels clunky. Something that takes longer than it should, or requires more manual steps than seems reasonable. Now ask:

When was this built? Not when was it last updated — when did this approach first get invented? If the answer is more than two years ago, dig deeper.

Why is it done this way? Not "what does this step accomplish" — why this method specifically? If nobody can explain the why, you've found one.

What was true then that isn't true now? Old system limitations. Missing integrations. Tools that didn't exist. If the constraint that created the workaround has disappeared, the workaround should probably disappear too.

A real example

An e-commerce brand we worked with had a team member who spent an hour every morning reconciling inventory across two systems. Copy numbers from the warehouse platform, paste into the sales platform, check for mismatches, flag anything weird.

Turns out this started in 2020 when they'd switched warehouse systems mid-year. The integration wasn't ready yet. Someone built a manual process to bridge the gap. The integration shipped three months later. Nobody turned off the manual process.

For four years, someone did an hour of work every day that achieved nothing. The systems were already syncing. The manual check was just confirming what the integration had already done.

Nobody questioned it because nobody remembered it was temporary.

The fix isn't complicated

Audit your processes with this lens: what here is a workaround, and does the original constraint still exist?

You don't need to rebuild everything. Most workarounds are fine. But the ones that aren't — the ones that are costing you hours, or accuracy, or the ability to use your tools properly — those are worth finding.

Usually it's one or two. And usually, once you see them, the fix is obvious. The hard part is remembering to look.

If you suspect there's a process or two in your operation that started as a quick fix and quietly became foundational, that's the kind of thing we help untangle.