Collaborate with others to resolve information technology issues
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
An agent can propose the plan, chase the replies and keep the record current. To actually change anything it needs write access to a calendar or work system, and a person still owns the tradeoffs when two plans collide.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Scheduling, planning and resource control |
| Jobs that do it | 15 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Tools and auth, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Coordinating the Work and Activities of Others (4.A.4.b.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 15 occupations that perform it.
- Confer with project personnel to identify and resolve problems.
- Confer with users to discuss issues such as computer data access needs, security violations, and programming changes.
- Meet with managers, vendors, and others to solicit cooperation and resolve problems.
- Read technical manuals, confer with users, or conduct computer diagnostics to investigate and resolve problems or to provide technical assistance and support.
- Communicate with vendors to gather information about products, alert them to future needs, resolve problems, or address system maintenance issues.
- Confer with network users about solutions to existing system problems.
- Consult with managerial, engineering, and technical personnel to clarify program intent, identify problems, and suggest changes.
- Confer with data processing or project managers to obtain information on limitations or capabilities for data processing projects.
- Collaborate with field staff or customers to evaluate or diagnose problems and recommend possible solutions.
- Confer with management or development teams to prioritize needs, resolve conflicts, develop content criteria, or choose solutions.
- Communicate with network personnel or Web site hosting agencies to address hardware or software issues affecting Web sites.
- Monitor systems for intrusions or denial of service attacks, and report security breaches to appropriate personnel.
- Confer with users to analyze, configure, or troubleshoot applications.
- Collaborate with others in the organization to ensure successful implementation of chosen problem solutions.
- Refer major hardware or software problems or defective products to vendors or technicians for service.
- Consult with and assist computer operators or system analysts to define and resolve problems in running computer programs.
- Collaborate with development teams to discuss, analyze, or resolve usability issues.
- Collaborate with senior managers and decision makers to identify and solve a variety of problems and to clarify management objectives.
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 scheduling, planning and resource control, and what it costs.
Scheduling is a connector problem rather than an intelligence one, and $9 a month of Make covers both the calendar and the chasing. An agent platform priced per seat adds nothing you would notice here.
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
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
15 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Computer and Information Research Scientists
- Computer Network Architects
- Computer Programmers
- Computer User Support Specialists
- Geographic Information Systems Technologists and Technicians
- Information Security Analysts
- Information Technology Project Managers
- Network and Computer Systems Administrators
- Operations Research Analysts
- Project Management Specialists
- Software Developers
- Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers
- Web Administrators
- Web and Digital Interface Designers
- Web Developers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Coordinate with others to resolve problems”. 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.