Work Charts
What capabilities will humans need to offer a valuable point of difference when AI dominates intellectual pursuits?
We need an open matrix of the transformation of work as Phygital Beings take control of the underlying feedback loops that society operates on.
- What does the future of meaningful endeavour look like?
- How will AI incentivize changes in human behaviour?
Core JTBD Matrix
What capabilities do you need per JTBD Workflow? What outcomes define success? How do you validate that outcomes are aligned with good intentions?
| Domain | Process | Workflow / Activity | Human Role (today) | AI Role (today) | AI % | Protocol - Algorithm | Artifacts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy | Vision & Positioning | Define company vision & narrative | Founders set direction, story, constraints | Generate options, synthesize market insights | 25% | strategy-principles | |
| Strategy | Strategic Planning | Annual/quarterly planning | Set priorities, trade-offs, resourcing | Scenario modeling, forecasting, risk simulation | 40% | planning-protocols | |
| Strategy | Pricing | Design & update pricing models | Choose value metric, guardrails, exceptions | Elasticity modeling, competitor & cohort analysis | 60% | business/growth/pricing | |
| Strategy | OKR / KPI Design | Define metrics & targets | Decide what matters, acceptable risk | Suggest metric trees, simulate targets | 50% | performance-metrics-standards | |
| Marketing | ICP & Segmentation | Define ICP, personas, segments | Validate insights, pick focus | Aggregate data, cluster, draft personas | 50% | marketing-protocols | |
| Marketing | Content Strategy | Plan content calendar & pillars | Choose themes, angles, quality bar | Propose calendars, topic clustering | 60% | marketing-content-strategy | |
| Marketing | Content Production | Long-form articles & pages | Set brief, edit, final voice & claims | Drafts, rewrites, SEO suggestions | 80% | marketing-article-copywriting | |
| Marketing | Campaign Management | Design & launch campaigns | Approve offers, creative direction | Variant generation, audience selection | 65% | marketing-campaign-workflow | |
| Marketing | Email & Nurture | Build nurture sequences | Define journey logic, compliance | Draft emails, subject lines, timing suggestions | 75% | marketing-lifecycle-email | |
| Marketing | Analytics & Reporting | Review performance, insights | Decide narrative, next bets | Auto-dashboards, anomaly detection | 70% | marketing-performance | |
| Sales | Lead Qualification | Score & prioritize inbound leads | Final judgment on fit, edge cases | Scoring, enrichment, routing | 80% | sales-lead-qualification | |
| Sales | Outbound Prospecting | Research and list building | Approve target profiles, sequences | Prospect list gen, personalization suggestions | 85% | sales-prospecting-workflow | |
| Sales | Discovery Calls | Run live discovery | Build trust, read nuance, adapt in real time | Live assist, note-taking, suggested questions | 30% | sales-discovery-playbook | |
| Sales | Proposal & Quote | Draft proposals and offers | Structure deal, terms, negotiation strategy | Draft docs, pricing scenarios, comparisons | 70% | sales-proposal-workflow | |
| Sales | Pipeline Management | Update CRM & forecasts | Override forecasts, deal risk judgment | Auto-updates, forecast models | 65% | sales-pipeline-operations | |
| Customer Journey | Onboarding | New customer onboarding | Relationship, expectation setting, exceptions | Checklists, comms drafts, environment setup | 60% | customer-onboarding-workflow | |
| Customer Journey | Support (Tier 1) | Handle common support tickets | Handle escalations, policy calls | Triage, auto-replies, knowledge surfacing | 85% | support-tier1-automation | |
| Customer Journey | Success / QBRs | QBRs & health reviews | Strategy, upsell, relationship | Data prep, decks, risk signals | 50% | customer-success-playbook | |
| Customer Journey | Feedback Collection | Surveys, NPS, interviews | Question design, interpretation | Survey flows, clustering, sentiment analysis | 70% | customer-feedback-process | |
| Product | Product Discovery | Problem discovery & validation | Run interviews, sense-making, vision | User research synthesis, pattern detection | 50% | product-discovery-workflow | |
| Product | Roadmapping | Prioritize roadmap | Trade-offs, bet sizing | Impact/effort modeling, dependency mapping | 45% | product-roadmap-process | |
| Product | Spec Writing | Write PRDs / specs | Decide scope, constraints, acceptance | Draft specs from patterns & conversations | 70% | product-specification-workflow | |
| Product | UX & Interaction Design | Design flows and interfaces | Taste, usability judgment | Variant generation, heuristic checks | 60% | design-system-workflow | |
| Product | Analytics & Experimentation | Define & run experiments | Hypotheses, ethical constraints | Experiment design suggestions, analysis | 65% | product-experimentation | |
| Engineering | Architecture & Design | System architecture decisions | First principles, risk, trade-offs | Generate options, model performance | 40% | platform-architecture-standards | |
| Engineering | Implementation | Write & review application code | Complex logic, integration, final review | Code generation, tests, refactors | 75% | engineering-development-workflow | |
| Engineering | DevOps & Infra | CI/CD, infra changes | Guardrails, incident response decisions | IaC suggestions, config generation, monitoring | 65% | platform-operations | |
| Engineering | QA & Testing | Define test strategy, edge cases | Risk-based test design | Test gen, execution, regression detection | 80% | quality-assurance-process | |
| Engineering | Incident Management | Triage & resolve incidents | Command, communication, trade-offs | Detection, runbooks, suggested actions | 50% | incident-response-playbook | |
| Operations | Process Design | Design & document workflows | Decide owners, SLAs, exceptions | Draft workflows, map tools & data | 60% | process-optimisation | |
| Operations | Vendor Management | Select & manage vendors | Relationship, negotiation, risk | Shortlisting, scorecards, monitoring | 50% | vendor-management-workflow | |
| Operations | Inventory / Fulfillment | Plan and track inventory & fulfillment | Edge-case decisions, supplier relationships | Forecasting, routing, re-order suggestions | 70% | supply-operations | |
| Operations | Facilities / IT Support | Internal IT / office ops | Escalations, exceptions | Self-service flows, triage, automation | 75% | it-operations | |
| HR | Workforce Planning | Headcount & role planning | Culture fit, strategic bets | Scenario modeling, comp benchmarks | 50% | human-resources-planning | |
| HR | Talent Acquisition | Sourcing & screening | Final judgment, interviews | Screening, outreach, CV ranking | 70% | human-resources-recruitment | |
| HR | Onboarding (People) | New hire onboarding | Relationship, cultural imprint | Schedules, docs, checklists | 65% | human-resources-onboarding | |
| HR | Performance Management | Reviews, feedback, progression | Judgment, difficult conversations | Draft reviews, 360 synthesis, pattern spotting | 55% | performance-management-process | |
| HR | Learning & Development | L&D programs | Strategy, curation, coaching | Personalized learning paths, content curation | 70% | learning-development-workflow | |
| Legal | Contract Drafting | Draft & review standard contracts | Edge cases, negotiation, risk appetite | Template gen, clause suggestions, comparisons | 75% | legal-contracting-process | |
| Legal | Compliance Monitoring | Monitor regulatory compliance | Interpret gray zones, escalation | Rule mapping, monitoring, alerting | 70% | legal-compliance-operations | |
| Legal | Policy Management | Draft internal policies | Value & culture alignment | Drafting from standards & laws | 65% | legal-policy-workflow | |
| Finance | Bookkeeping | Record transactions | Exceptions, reconciliations | Auto-categorization, reconciliation suggestions | 85% | accounting-process | |
| Finance | Management Reporting | Monthly/quarterly reporting | Narrative, decision recommendations | Close automation, dashboards, variance analysis | 70% | finance-reporting-workflow | |
| Finance | Budgeting & Forecasting | Budgets and cashflow forecasts | Strategic constraints, risk tolerance | Forecast models, scenario generation | 65% | budgeting-forecasting-process | |
| Finance | Billing & Collections | Invoicing, collections | Edge cases, relationship-sensitive collections | Invoice gen, reminders, payment plans | 80% | billing-collections-workflow | |
| Governance | Risk Management | Identify & manage key risks | Risk appetite, trade-offs | Risk registers, scenario analysis | 50% | risk-management-standards | |
| Governance | Board / Investor Updates | Board packs, investor comms | Narrative, commitments | Draft decks, metrics, scenario visualizations | 60% | investor-relations-workflow |
HiTL Capabilities
What does the "Human Role" column actually demand? Eight patterns of human work survive AI. Each maps to specific capabilities from the scorecard.
| HiTL Pattern | Where It Appears | Capabilities Required | T-Bar | AI Can't Because |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Set direction | Strategy, Product Discovery | Planning, Storytelling, First Principles, Taste | V+H | Direction requires conviction, not computation |
| Make trade-offs | Strategy, Engineering Architecture, Governance | Systems Thinking, Critical Thinking, Planning, Investing | V | Trade-offs require values, not optimization |
| Build trust | Sales Discovery, Customer Success, Onboarding | Empathy, Listening, Selling, Presenting | H | Trust transfers between consciousness, not interfaces |
| Judge quality | Marketing, Product Design, QA | Taste, Critical Thinking, Pattern Recognition | V | "Good enough" vs "good" requires lived context |
| Handle exceptions | Legal, Finance, Support Escalation | Critical Thinking, First Principles, Focus | V | Edge cases require judgment outside training data |
| Create meaning | Content, Campaign, UX Design | Creativity, Taste, Writing, Visualisation | V+H | Meaning requires someone who has experienced it |
| Negotiate terms | Sales Proposals, Vendor Mgt, Contracts | Negotiation, Selling, Planning | H | Negotiation requires reading what isn't said |
| Orchestrate agents | Engineering, Operations, Incident Response | Orchestration, Systems Thinking, Questioning | H+V | Knowing when to think vs delegate |
As AI % rises, human work compresses from doing to directing, judging, trusting, and handling what breaks. Rows below 40% AI are human-led (direction, trust, trade-offs). Rows above 70% are AI-led with human exception handling. The middle band (40-70%) is where orchestration capability determines who leads.
The T-shaped professional survives this compression. Vertical depth keeps you irreplaceable in judgment rows. Horizontal range keeps you relevant across trust and distribution rows. Without both, you either get automated (all V, narrow domain) or commoditized (all H, no depth).
Commissioning Work
You have a commissioned workflow when any inexperienced agent can follow the decision tree and deliver expected outcomes without the need for an MKO to course correct.
Who does what in the L0-L4 commissioning process. The builder is never the commissioner.
| Level | Who Specifies | Who Builds | Who Verifies | Automation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L0 | Dream team | — | Dream team | PRD template gates |
| L1 | Dream team | Engineering agent | Engineering tests | Schema validation |
| L2 | Dream team | Engineering agent | Manual QA | Playwright stubs |
| L3 | Dream team | Engineering agent | Intent specs | E2E + intent specs automated |
| L4 | Dream team | Engineering agent | Independent commissioner | Browser walkthrough with evidence capture |
The delegation chain: spec (intent) → build (action) → verify (proof). Verifiable intent applied to software delivery.
Validate Virtuous Feedback
Which VVFL station is human, which is AI, which is automated.
| Station | Owner | Work Type | Instrument |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capture | Human | Observe pain, write questions | Tight Five protocol |
| Priorities | Human + AI | Score PRDs, order build queue | 5P scoring algorithm |
| Attention | AI agent | Generate code, run tests | Engineering agent + CI |
| Value | AI agent | Intent specs, E2E tests | Playwright + Zod contracts |
| Systems | AI + Human | Wire commissioning gauge | Commissioning API |
| Standards | Human | Independent walkthrough | Browser MCP + evidence capture |
| Distribute | AI + Human | Deploy, measure usage | PostHog, Vercel |
| Reflect | AI | Error tracking, gap analysis | Sentry, commissioning data |
| Evolve | Human | Update templates, improve process | Receipt patterns, legacy rule |
The Shift
Prediction: Work Charts will eat Org Charts and Self-Interested Politics along the way.
| Org Chart | Work Chart |
|---|---|
| Who reports to whom? | What work needs doing? |
| Where do you sit? | What can you do? |
| Career = climbing boxes | Career = expanding capabilities |
| Fixed roles | Fluid activities |
Context
- AI Work Transformation — Delegation direction, human edge, skill shift, industry charts
- Commissioning Protocol — L0-L4 maturity model that the commissioning work chart implements
- Verifiable Intent — The authorization proof protocol behind the delegation chain
- VVFL — The feedback loop the VVFL work chart maps
- Business Innovation — The innovation process
- Tech Platform — The accumulated assets work charts operate on
- Data Footprint — The commissioning instrument that measures what's connected
- Capabilities — The T-shape framework and capability menu
- Horizontal SaaS — Tools that amplify capabilities
- Vertical SaaS — Industry-specific outcomes
- Principles — The truths that guide decisions
- Marketing — Domain work chart example
- RFP Process — Vendor Management workflow detail (Operations domain)
Links
Questions
What would change if every team maintained a living work chart instead of an org chart?
- Which rows in the matrix show AI % declining — and what does that reveal about the limits of automation?
- If the template is the same for every function, why do most teams still describe work in paragraphs instead of matrices?
- When two domains share identical AI % trends, does that signal a horizontal platform opportunity?
- At what commissioning level does human judgment become irreplaceable — and does the delegation table match your intuition?