There’s a spreadsheet beside the system everyone is supposed to use. A note gets copied into a chat. Someone keeps a separate list of the jobs that really need attention.
It’s tempting to treat these as habits to eliminate. But each workaround may be doing a job the official process doesn’t support.
Watch the handoff.
Ask someone to take you through a real piece of work. Notice when they leave the main tool, what they carry into the next one, and what they need to remember along the way.
A copied field might reveal that two teams use different names for the same thing. A private list might reveal that the official status doesn’t tell anyone what needs to happen next.
Keep the useful part.
A small informal tool can capture an important insight. Perhaps it puts the next action first. Perhaps it lets someone add the one piece of context that prevents a mistake.
Understand that value before designing its replacement. Otherwise the new system may be cleaner while still leaving the same gap.
Choose a specific change.
Define what should become easier in terms someone can observe. Enter information once. See who owns the next step. Find the exception without opening every record.
Those changes give design and engineering a shared purpose, and give the people doing the work a practical way to judge whether the result helps.