Manage construction activities
Little of this can be handed to software today.
The reporting and paperwork around management automate well. Directing, developing and evaluating people does not, and people do not accept it when it is attempted on them.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Managing, training and developing people |
| Jobs that do it | 9 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Enterprise platforms |
| O*NET activity | Guiding, Directing, and Motivating Subordinates (4.A.4.b.4) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 9 occupations that perform it.
- Administer programs for selection of sites, construction of buildings, or provision of equipment or supplies.
- Recommend locations for new facilities, or oversee the remodeling or renovating of current facilities.
- Oversee construction and renovation projects to improve efficiency and to ensure that facilities meet environmental, health, and security standards, and comply with government regulations.
- Supervise the construction of farm or ranch structures, such as buildings, fences, drainage systems, wells, or roads.
- Plan, schedule, or coordinate construction project activities to meet deadlines.
- Manage the coordination and overall integration of technical activities in architecture or engineering projects.
- Plan, schedule, and coordinate general maintenance, major repairs, and remodeling or construction projects for commercial or residential properties.
- Coordinate or direct development, energy assessment, engineering, or construction activities to ensure that wind project needs and objectives are met.
- Plan, schedule, or coordinate project activities to meet deadlines.
- Implement new or modified plans in response to delays, bad weather, or construction site emergencies.
- Plan, direct, or coordinate survey work with other project activities.
- Contract or oversee craft work, such as painting or plumbing.
- Plan, organize, or direct activities concerned with the construction or maintenance of structures, facilities, or systems.
What we would actually use
Nothing in our landscape addresses this work. That is the honest answer rather than a padded list: this activity needs a person present, or a machine rather than a software agent.
Buy nothing. The reporting and paperwork around management run on whatever you already use for documents, and the part that is actually managing people does not automate at any price.
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.
Enterprise platforms
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
9 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 “Direct construction or extraction activities”. 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.