Analyze project data to determine specifications or requirements
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Software can pull the data, run the comparison and write up what it found. The accuracy depends almost entirely on whether it is wired into the real system of record rather than a stale copy, which is the problem the tools and auth layer exists to solve.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Analysis and evaluation work |
| Jobs that do it | 10 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Builders, Tools and auth |
| O*NET activity | Analyzing Data or Information (4.A.2.a.4) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 10 occupations that perform it.
- Analyze information processing or computation needs and plan and design computer systems, using techniques such as structured analysis, data modeling, and information engineering.
- Assess existing facilities' needs for new or modified telecommunications systems.
- Recommend changes to improve systems and network configurations, and determine hardware or software requirements related to such changes.
- Analyze information to determine, recommend, and plan installation of a new system or modification of an existing system.
- Analyze user needs to determine technical requirements.
- Study and analyze information about alternative courses of action to determine which plan will offer the best outcomes.
- Analyze statistical data and product specifications to determine standards and establish quality and reliability objectives of finished product.
- Analyze test data to identify defects or determine calibration requirements.
- Conduct analyses to determine the maximum amount of work that can be accomplished for a given amount of energy in a system, such as industrial production systems and waste treatment systems.
- Set specifications for materials, dimensions, and finishes.
- Gather data pertaining to customer needs, and use the information to identify, predict, interpret, and evaluate system and network requirements.
- Analyze user needs and software requirements to determine feasibility of design within time and cost constraints.
- Obtain and evaluate information on factors such as reporting formats required, costs, or security needs to determine hardware configuration.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for analysis and evaluation work, and what it costs.
Start in the assistant with an export of the real data, because the accuracy problem here is a stale copy rather than a weak model. Make, at $9 a month, is the cheapest way to put the pull on a schedule once the analysis is worth repeating.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
Step-by-step workflows that name this activity, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Others for analysis and evaluation work
Who does this work
10 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Evaluate designs, specifications, or other technical data”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.