Develop operating strategies, plans, or procedures
Little of this can be handed to software today.
Software can assemble the case and recommend an answer, and that is genuinely useful. The decision stays with a person because someone has to be accountable for it. Treating the recommendation as the decision is how automation projects fail.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Judgment, authorisation and strategy |
| Jobs that do it | 27 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Generalist agents, Models and routing |
| O*NET activity | Developing Objectives and Strategies (4.A.2.b.4) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 27 occupations that perform it.
- Formulate policies and procedures related to public information programs, working with public relations executives.
- Formulate policies and procedures related to fundraising programs.
- Develop, arrange for, perform, or assess executive protection activities to reduce security risks.
- Develop and interpret organizational goals, policies, and procedures.
- Develop internal control policies, guidelines, and procedures for activities, such as budget administration, cash and credit management, and accounting.
- Set and monitor product standards, examining samples of raw products or directing testing during processing, to ensure finished products are of prescribed quality.
- Create and implement inspection and testing criteria or procedures.
- Develop and implement purchasing and contract management instructions, policies, and procedures.
- Plan or implement improvements to internal or external systems or processes.
- Design or implement plant warehousing strategies for production materials or finished products.
- Formulate policies, procedures and programs for recruitment, testing, placement, classification, orientation, benefits and compensation, and labor and industrial relations.
- Plan, schedule, or coordinate construction project activities to meet deadlines.
- Review and interpret government codes and develop procedures to meet codes and to ensure facility safety, security, and maintenance.
- Plan, coordinate, and oversee school logistics programs, such as bus and food services.
- Formulate strategic plans for the institution.
- Develop or implement policies, standards, or procedures for engineering and technical work.
- Develop and implement policies and procedures for the operation of a department or establishment.
- Develop and implement organizational policies and procedures for the facility or medical unit.
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 judgment, authorisation and strategy, and what it costs.
There is nothing here worth buying beyond a good assistant. Software assembles the case and recommends an answer, which any $20 assistant already does; the decision is yours, and no product on this page changes that.
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.
Generalist agents
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
27 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Architectural and Engineering Managers
- Compensation and Benefits Managers
- Compliance Managers
- Computer and Information Systems Managers
- Construction Managers
- Education Administrators, Kindergarten through Secondary
- Education Administrators, Postsecondary
- Education and Childcare Administrators, Preschool and Daycare
- Fundraising Managers
- Funeral Home Managers
- Industrial Production Managers
- Information Security Engineers
- Lodging Managers
- Loss Prevention Managers
- Medical and Health Services Managers
- Natural Sciences Managers
- Project Management Specialists
- Public Relations Managers
- Purchasing Managers
- Quality Control Systems Managers
- Regulatory Affairs Managers
- Security Managers
- Social and Community Service Managers
- Supply Chain Managers
- Technical Writers
- Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers
- Treasurers and Controllers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Develop organizational policies, systems, or processes”. 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.