MondayWiki

One of the biggest surprises I had when I first started using Monday CRM was discovering that it isn't really a CRM.

At least not in the way most people think about a CRM.

I know that sounds strange.

After all, it's literally called Monday CRM.

It has contacts.

Deals.

Activities.

Sales pipelines.

All the CRM-shaped things you'd expect a CRM to have.

But after spending years building systems for clients on monday, I've come to realise that Monday CRM is actually something else entirely.

It's a business systems platform that happens to come with a CRM pre-installed.

That's a very different thing.

A traditional CRM is usually designed around a specific way of working.

You sign up.

Import your contacts.

Configure a few settings.

Maybe add a couple of automations.

And away you go.

Monday CRM is more like being handed a workshop full of tools and materials and being told:

"Build the CRM that works for your business."

For some businesses, that's brilliant.

For others, it's a nasty surprise.

Because they thought they were buying a CRM and accidentally signed up for a system design project. 😅

And honestly, that's where I see many organisations get stuck.

They spend weeks tweaking boards, creating automations, redesigning workflows and trying to make everything fit together.

Not because they're doing anything wrong.

But because they're solving a much bigger problem than they realised.

They're not configuring software.

They're designing operations.

Once you understand that, monday starts making a lot more sense.

The learning curve makes sense.

The flexibility makes sense.

The setup effort makes sense.

The fact that two businesses can both use Monday CRM and end up with completely different systems makes sense.

I'm curious...

When you first signed up for Monday CRM, did you think you were getting a CRM?

Or did you realise from day one that you were actually buying a platform for building business systems?

monday.com

I've always known this day was coming.

Not next week.

Not next month.

But eventually.

The day when monday stopped being a system builder with AI super powers and became an AI super power that could build systems.

I've been expecting it for years.

What I wasn't expecting was to be sitting here after the latest product updates wondering if that day might be arriving a lot sooner than I thought.

Like next month "sooner".

Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Maybe I've spent too many years staring at workflows and automation recipes and my brain has finally turned into a dependency column.

But I'm starting to wonder...

What happens to Monday CRM?

What happens to Work Management?

Service?

Dev?

Do these remain products in their own right?

Or are they going to disappear and instead you simply type:

"Build me a CRM for my business."

And then p**f... 🪄

The AI disappears behind the curtain, pulls a few levers, releases some steam, and assembles an entire system.

But what about that entire system you build in monday CRM? What happens to that when AI takes over completely?

To be clear, this isn't an anti-AI post.

I use AI every day.

I think AI is incredible.

This is more of a practical question.

Because I work with businesses that have spent months, and sometimes years, building systems around monday's current products.

They've mapped processes.

Documented workflows.

Built automations.

Trained teams.

Created reporting structures.

Connected half their business operations together with varying degrees of hope and cable ties.

These aren't systems you casually replace over a long weekend.

Which is why I'd love some clarity from monday about the long-term vision.

Is AI becoming an assistant that helps us use the products?

Or are the products themselves being absorbed into the AI experience? (And if the answer to that question is "yes" then the next obvious question is "When?").

Because if the destination is a fully AI-driven platform, some organisations may decide that's exactly what they want.

Others may not.

And if people need to make that decision, a year's notice isn't actually a very long time when you've built a significant chunk of your business on top of the platform.

And I'm guessing, at the rate monday is going, we have far less than a year before this becomes reality. If my suspicions are correct (and I'm not just a "big monday" conspiracy theorist).

Curious whether anyone else is wondering the same thing after the recent announcements.

Am I spotting genuine signposts here...
..or am I just the guy standing in a field shouting at a cloud that turned out to be a sheep?

monday.com

Back when monday Sales CRM first appeared, I watched a lot of people walk into exactly the same trap.

It went something like this:

"Great. We've bought a CRM."

Spoiler alert:

They hadn't bought a CRM.

Not really.

They'd bought a giant box of Lego and somebody had stuck a "CRM" label on the front. 😅

At first glance it all looks reassuringly CRM-ish.

Leads.

Deals.

Pipelines.

Nice colours.

A few templates.

Everything appears ready to go.

So naturally people start customising.

A new status here.

A couple of automations there.

Maybe an extra board.

Maybe seven extra boards.

Then a few weeks later they're sitting in front of a monday account wondering why something that looked so simple now resembles a conspiracy wall from a detective movie.

Strings everywhere.

Connections everywhere.

Nobody quite sure what's connected to what.

The funny thing is, monday wasn't the problem.

monday was being completely honest.

It was saying:

"You told me to build this. So I did."

The reality is that monday isn't really a CRM.

It's a system-building platform that can become a CRM.

Or a project management system.

Or a client portal.

Or an operational command centre.

Or a very expensive collection of boards nobody understands.

That's both the magic and the danger.

It's why I often say that monday's greatest superpower is also its kryptonite.

Bring clarity into monday and it'll amplify that clarity.

Bring confusion into monday and it'll amplify that too.

Very efficiently.

With dashboards.

And automations.

And colour coding.

One of the most common things I see isn't businesses running out of features.

It's businesses running out of clarity.

They spend three weeks debating statuses when nobody has agreed what the sales process actually is.

They build automations for decisions that haven't been made yet.

They create reporting for workflows that only exist in theory.

The software gets blamed.

The real culprit quietly escapes through a side door.

These days, whenever someone tells me they're evaluating monday, I care far less about how many users they have than whether they've actually mapped the process they're trying to manage.

Because somewhere out there right now is a monday account containing:

• 14 status columns

• 63 automations

• 4 duplicate pipelines

• A board called "NEW CRM"

• A board called "NEW CRM V2"

• And a board called "USE THIS ONE"

Let's not make another one of those. 😂

monday.com

One of the biggest mistakes I see new monday users make happens within the first hour.

They sign up.

Open the CRM template.

And immediately start customising it.

New columns.

New statuses.

New automations.

New boards.

A few weeks later they're wondering why everything feels more complicated than it did before.

Here's the thing...

The CRM template isn't "the monday way."

It's just *a* way.

And if you haven't yet figured out how your business actually works, what you're tracking, who owns what, and how work flows through the business, you're basically decorating the house before you've decided where the walls go.

This is one of the reasons people get frustrated with monday.

They think they're configuring software.

What they're actually doing is designing an operating system for their business.

That's a very different exercise.

The funny thing is that monday's greatest superpower is also its kryptonite.

You can build almost anything.

Which means you can also build an incredibly sophisticated mess. 😅

So before you start tweaking templates, adding automations and creating seventeen different status columns...

Take a step back.

Figure out what problem you're actually trying to solve first.

Your future self will thank you.

Your future self is also probably still trying to work out why Automation #47 is firing every Thursday at 3:17pm.

monday.com

Confession time...

I've spent far too many hours playing "Find The Automation" inside monday. 😅

You know the drill.

You need to update an automation.

Or troubleshoot one.

Or figure out why something weird is happening.

And suddenly you're digging through board after board trying to locate the one automation recipe responsible.

The problem is getting worse too.

For years, automation recipes had unique Automation IDs.

Not a perfect system, but at least every automation had its own fingerprint.

Now those IDs have disappeared from new automations.

monday has mentioned Workflow IDs as a replacement, but that doesn't seem to have arrived yet.

So new automation recipes effectively have no unique identifier at all.

Combine that with:

👉 Automation Centre search being... less than amazing

👉 Multiple automations needed for even moderately complex workflows

👉 Variations of the same automation recipe everywhere

👉 Automations scattered across dozens of boards
..and it's not hard to see why so many monday accounts eventually descend into automation chaos.

The funny thing is, I think I've accidentally found an incredibly simple solution.

A sneaky little way to make the right automation instantly findable.

But even better...

A way to instantly see exactly where that automation is documented inside an Automations Hub.

No IDs.

No hunting.

No detective work.

Just "there it is."

The solution is almost laughably simple.

Which is usually a sign that it's a good one. 😂

I've now built it into something I'm calling the 15 Minute Automation Chaos Tamer.

It's not available yet, but every time I add another piece to it, I'm becoming more convinced this is something every serious monday user should have installed.

If you'd like me to let you know when it's ready, drop a comment below and I'll make sure you hear about it.

monday.com

Most Monday.com Reviews Sound Like They Were Written By The Marketing Department. This One Doesn't.

https://vist.ly/575xw

monday.com

Here's one thing you can do today in 15 minutes that will help you untangle the operational spaghetti that is your current monday setup.

1. Pick your most important and chaotic/confusing board.
2. Look for any automations that include the word "connect" and set their importance level to critical.
3. Filter your automation centre to only show those recipes labelled as "critical" importance level.

These critical cross-board automation recipes are the ligaments that tie together the skeleton of your monday system.

Look at them.

Understand them.

If you understand what these automations are and what they do, you understand the most important functionality of the board in question.

And if you don't have any critical/cross-board automation recipes in this board?
Well, then either the board isn't that important. Or you don't understand what it is that makes monday powerful. You don't understand one of it's most unique super powers.

In other words, you're either using the right tool wrong, or you're simply using the wrong tool for your needs.

P.S. If you found the steps in this post helpful, there is so much more you can do to tame the beast that is your current monday setup. Check out the link in the comments for next steps.

monday.com

Most businesses aren't drowning in work.
They're drowning in broken systems. 👇

Tasks living in people's heads. The same question asked five times a week. Information scattered everywhere. No single source of truth.

So what's the fix? Most people hire more. Work harder. Neither touches the real problem.

When the system is broken, effort becomes noise.
When the system works, the same team does more — with less stress.

💡 The chaos isn't you. It's the infrastructure underneath.

👇 What's one thing in your business that only works because one person holds it all in their head?

Drop it below. You might be surprised how many people are living the same reality. (And if you want to map what's actually broken — we have a free Operational Chaos Audit that is an eye-opener. Link in the comments)