By mariogarcia A few days ago I put together an internal time report. Nothing fancy: hours invested in a project over the last two months, broken down by time of day. The kind of thing you do to justify progress.
The result made me uncomfortable.
65% of the time invested happened outside working hours. Of that, just over 30% was on weekends. The remaining almost 35% was nights and early mornings.
When I presented those numbers, my company’s reaction was immediate and blunt: “This is not how it should be done.” It wasn’t a complaint about the project. It was genuine concern for me. And they were right.
Today I’m not here to talk about tools (yet). I’m here to talk about the process. Because there’s a lesson in it worth more than any Orchestrator tutorial.
On May 16th I wrote down the question that starts almost everything interesting in technology: “What if…?”
A timid statement. No budget, no assignment, nobody asking for it. Just a hunch that there was something there, at the intersection of JD Edwards, Orchestrator and Artificial Intelligence, that could solve real problems in a different way.
That question became a possibility. The possibility became a working MVP. And the MVP kept taking shape until it turned into several tools that are now on the verge of their proofs of concept: deployment at an end client, on a real process, measuring whether they solve it satisfactorily. If they pass that gate, they expand to more areas and more processes.
I’ll tell you about the tools soon. Today is about what’s behind them.
Looking back at the journey with a cold eye, the project unknowingly followed an innovation funnel that any company running JDE should copy:
1. The question. “What if?”. Cost: zero. Risk: zero. This is where 90% of innovation dies in most companies — because nobody dares to ask it, or nobody wants to hear it.
2. The possibility. A few hours of exploration. Validating it’s not technically insane. Minimum investment, maximum learning.
3. The MVP. Something ugly but functional. It’s not there to impress anyone — it’s there to prove the full flow works end to end.
4. The tool. The MVP matures: error handling, edge cases, decent architecture.
5. The proof of concept. A real client, a real process, real metrics. Pretty demos don’t count here: either it solves the process or it doesn’t.
6. Expansion. Only if the PoC passes does it scale to more areas.
Why am I telling you this? Because this funnel carries a brutal business logic: investment only grows when evidence grows. Nobody bet six figures on an idea. Hours were bet on a question, days on an MVP, and only when there were measurable results did anyone talk about end clients. Compare that to the classic big-bang automation project that burns months of budget before proving anything. The difference in financial risk is enormous.
That 65% after hours is not a badge of honor. It’s time I stopped being present with my family. It’s neglected health. It’s a pace that, simply put, is not sustainable. And I’m not saying it to look good: I’ve already corrected it — I promised my wife and daughters — and today the project moves forward at a healthy pace.
But it would be dishonest to hide the other side: there’s a kind of work where a whole night goes by and you don’t even feel it. Where you push past limits you didn’t know existed. Where the results are so good the exhaustion arrives afterwards, never during. No salary or deadline produces that. Passion does.
And here comes the reflection that actually matters.
Projects like this are only born in one specific kind of place: one where people support you, inspire you and let you grow. My company never asked me for this project. But when I proposed it, they listened. As I made progress, they followed up. And when they saw my hour count, they stopped me for my own good (Also my wife even before) . That — and nothing else — is a culture of innovation. Thank you, Broadpin.
For an executive, this translates into something very measurable: the opportunity cost of not listening. Every “what if” a technical person keeps to themselves — because they know nobody will pay attention — is, potentially, a process that will keep burning manual hours for years. Automation with Orchestrator and AI doesn’t start with a license or a partner: it starts with a conversation someone dared to have and someone bothered to hear.
I’m not writing this to motivate you to overwork. Quite the opposite. I’m writing it so you ask yourself three questions:
Can you propose ideas at your company and be allowed to work on them, even with uncertainty at the start? Do they listen when you have something to contribute, even if it’s not strictly your job? Do they give you room to grow personally and professionally?
I’m in a place like that. And believe me: it shows in the results.
Over the coming weeks I’ll start revealing exactly what these JDE + Orchestrator + AI tools are and which processes they’ll tackle in the proof of concept. If you work with JD Edwards and want a front-row seat — or you want to explore how to build this kind of innovation funnel inside your own organization — subscribe to the newsletter or reach out directly. This is only the beginning.