# 03. Pareto Principle

> A small number of causes often create most of the outcome.

*The 80/20 rule.*

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.

**URL:** https://aigarage.in/how-we-think/pareto-principle

## 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

- **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.

## Questions to ask

- Which inputs, cases, or steps account for most volume, delay, cost, or risk?
- What is the smallest intervention that would materially change that concentration?
- What will we deliberately leave alone until the first intervention is measured?

## In 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.

## Use it when

- Prioritising a backlog
- Finding automation candidates
- Reducing project scope

## Related

- [Quick Wins](https://aigarage.in/#quick-wins): Find the focused intervention that can unblock a larger workflow.
- [AI Automation Agency](https://aigarage.in/ai-automation-agency): Map and prioritise production workflows before scaling automation.

## Attribution

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.”