BLOG ARTICLE · AUTOMATION
8 workflow anti-patterns to avoid
Automation failures are rarely loud. They are workflows that run correctly for months while producing a slightly worse outcome than doing nothing. These eight show up most often.
Emily Davis · Jul 22, 2026 · 6 min read
The eight
Each of these has a plausible-sounding rationale, which is exactly why they survive review.
- The unbounded loop: a workflow whose output re-triggers its own entry condition. Always cap executions per record.
- The silent failure: an error branch that logs and exits. If nobody is paged, the workflow has been off since April.
- The overlapping enrolment: a contact enrolled in four sequences that each assume they are the only sender.
- The stale condition: branching on a field that a migration renamed six months ago, so every record takes the else path.
- The instant follow-up: firing a "just checking in" message ninety seconds after a form submission.
- The unreversible action: automation that deletes, merges, or downgrades with no audit trail and no undo.
- The timezone assumption: send-time logic written in the builder's timezone, delivered at 3am to half the list.
- The orphan: a workflow whose owner left, whose purpose nobody remembers, and which nobody will turn off.
The review that catches all eight
Once a quarter, list every active workflow with its execution count, error rate, and last-modified date. Anything with zero executions is dead weight. Anything with a non-zero error rate and no alert is an outage you have not noticed. Anything without a named owner gets one or gets disabled.
This review takes an afternoon and consistently finds more value than building the next automation would have.