I find the work nobody wants to own, and I end it.
Two draw cycles a month, about thirty hours each, now unattended.
Twice a month, unattended. Two signatures still stand between it and the sponsor.
Six stalled draw requests. Tens of millions. Recovered.
A week of one person's work per cycle, replaced by a program that writes an auditable line-item defense for every invoice under every award. It runs twice a month and has not missed one since.
What I would defend hardest is the signature, not the automation. A system that files federal paperwork without a person signing off is a liability, not a feature. Removing the gate would have demoed faster and audited worse.
Automate the part that costs hours and needs no judgment
Leave the judgment where a person signs
Publish the number and the way to check it
Then go and find the next one
Nobody asked for it.
Nothing in my job description said "write software." Nobody budgeted for it, and there was no developer to hand it to. I wrote it anyway, because the alternative was a week of my life, twice a month, indefinitely.
Everything else here is that same decision made again: in a card business that needed pricing done in minutes, in a probability engine that refuses to estimate, on a page that shows you where its own numbers come from.