Information-gathering

Do not underestimate the power of the pub trip when it comes to getting people to give you feedback on current processes. Maybe it's just a British thing, but people love complaining about work when they're at the pub, and "I spent X minutes waiting for tool Y" is just the kind of information that can be useful when looking for process optimizations.

(Of course, deliberately taking people to the pub for a process meeting would be silly. I'm just observing that if you're in the right place at the right time you can pick up a lot of useful info...)