Principle 03
The 80/20 rule
Pareto Principle
A small number of causes often create most of the outcome.
The useful lesson is not that every split is exactly 80/20. It is that effort and impact are often uneven—and prioritisation should reflect that.
What it means
Workflows rarely distribute value evenly. A few request types may create most support volume; a few handoffs may cause most delays; a few features may serve most users.
Pareto thinking asks teams to find the vital few before optimising everything. The ratio is a prompt for investigation, not a promise or a substitute for measurement.
Why it matters for AI
Automation has an opportunity cost
Time spent automating a low-volume edge case cannot be spent improving the workflow that dominates the team's day.
Data beats loud requests
Frequency, effort, risk, and value help separate high-impact problems from merely visible ones.
Scope becomes defensible
A team can explain why it is solving one part first and what evidence would move another item up the list.
Try it on a real problem
Start with three questions.
- 01
Which inputs, cases, or steps account for most volume, delay, cost, or risk?
- 02
What is the smallest intervention that would materially change that concentration?
- 03
What will we deliberately leave alone until the first intervention is measured?
Put it into practice
Rank before you automate
List recurring work by frequency and time per occurrence. Multiply the two, then add business risk. The first automation candidate should come from the concentrated impact—not from whichever task is most annoying today.
The principle is associated with Vilfredo Pareto's observations about uneven distributions and was later popularised in quality management as the idea of the “vital few.”
Where this shows up