Role Redesign For AI Skill
When AI absorbs 40% of a role's tasks, orgs default to the worst option: say nothing, and let expectations quietly inflate until the human is doing their old job plus supervising the machine, evaluated by standards from neither. This skill makes the redesign explicit — what the role stops doing, what it now owns, and what "good" means after the shift.
What This Skill Produces
- A task inventory, before/after: what AI took, what it created, what stayed human — with hours
- The redefined core: the role's new centre of gravity, written as a charter
- New expectations & metrics: what performance means now (and which old metrics are dead)
- Level and growth-path implications — including the junior-pipeline problem, faced honestly
Required Inputs
Ask for (if not already provided):
- The role today: title, level, the real task list (or the JD plus what the JD lies about)
- What AI actually absorbed — observed, not vendor-promised: which tasks, how completely, with what verification burden
- The person/team context: one person or a team of eight? tenure mix? current performance framework?
- The org's honest intent: same headcount doing more? fewer people? higher-value work? (The redesign differs; refusing to pick is itself the problem — flag it.)
Redesign Method
- Inventory tasks, not titles. List the role's tasks with weekly hours. Mark each: AI-absorbed (machine does it, human spot-checks) · AI-assisted (human does it faster) · AI-created (new work: prompting, verifying, correcting, supervising agents) · Human-core (judgment, relationships, accountability, taste). The AI-created column is the one orgs forget — verification is work, and it's in this role now.
- Balance the hours honestly. Old role = 40h. Absorbed −12h, assisted −6h, created +8h → 10h of genuine capacity. The redesign decides where those hours go on purpose: deeper human-core work, wider scope, or reduced load. Unallocated capacity becomes silent expectation inflation within a quarter.
- Redefine the core. The role's new centre is what only it can be accountable for. Write the charter in outcomes: what this role owns (decisions, quality bars, relationships), what it supervises (the AI-done work — with the verification standard stated), what it no longer does (named, so nobody performs it out of habit or fear).
- Rewrite the metrics. Kill throughput metrics the machine now drives (tickets closed, words shipped, drafts produced) — a human evaluated on machine output is being evaluated on prompt luck. New metrics live where the human is: judgment quality (error catch rate on AI output, decision outcomes), the human-core outcomes, and supervision health. Pair with
ai-assisted-performance-review for the review conversation itself.
- Face the ladder problem. If AI absorbed the tasks juniors learned on, the pipeline to senior judgment is cut. The redesign states how the next cohort develops: deliberate reps on AI-done tasks (inefficient on purpose), verification apprenticeships, or a redesigned junior role — "we'll figure it out" is how professions hollow out.
- Plan the conversation. The redesign lands as a change to someone's identity, not their task list. The rollout: the draft is discussed with the people in the role before it's announced, the "no longer does" list is framed as release not demotion, and comp/level implications are stated in the same meeting they're wondered about.
Output Format
Role Redesign: [title] — post-AI charter
Intent (stated): [more output / fewer people / higher-value work — the org's actual answer]
Task inventory
| Task |
Hrs before |
Status |
Hrs after |
Note |
| (with the AI-created verification/supervision rows present) |
|
|
|
|
Capacity math: [freed hours → where they were deliberately allocated]
The new charter: Owns: […] · Supervises (with verification standard): […] · No longer does: […]
Metrics: [dead metrics, named as dead · new metrics with definitions]
Ladder implications: [how juniors now develop the judgment this role's seniors have]
Rollout: [discussion-before-announcement plan · the comp/level statement · review date for the charter itself]
Quality Checks
Anti-Patterns
1---2name: role-redesign-for-ai3description: Redesign a job role that AI now does a large part of — deliberately, instead of quietly expecting the same headcount to absorb 140% output. Use when AI has changed what a role spends time on, when writing a revised role charter or job description post-AI, when a team asks 'what is my job now', or when planning capacity after AI adoption. Produces a role redesign: the task inventory before/after, the redefined core of the role, new expectations and metrics, and the growth-path implications. For hiring rubrics use hiring-rubric; for org-wide skills planning use ai-upskilling or career-ladder-map.4---5
6# Role Redesign For AI Skill
7
8When AI absorbs 40% of a role's tasks, orgs default to the worst option: say nothing, and let expectations quietly inflate until the human is doing their old job *plus* supervising the machine, evaluated by standards from neither. This skill makes the redesign explicit — what the role stops doing, what it now owns, and what "good" means after the shift.
9
10## What This Skill Produces
11
12- A **task inventory, before/after**: what AI took, what it created, what stayed human — with hours
13- The **redefined core**: the role's new centre of gravity, written as a charter
14- **New expectations & metrics**: what performance means now (and which old metrics are dead)
15- **Level and growth-path implications** — including the junior-pipeline problem, faced honestly
16
17## Required Inputs
18
19Ask for (if not already provided):
20- **The role today**: title, level, the real task list (or the JD plus what the JD lies about)
21- **What AI actually absorbed** — observed, not vendor-promised: which tasks, how completely, with what verification burden
22- **The person/team context**: one person or a team of eight? tenure mix? current performance framework?
23- **The org's honest intent**: same headcount doing more? fewer people? higher-value work? (The redesign differs; refusing to pick is itself the problem — flag it.)
24
25## Redesign Method
26
271. **Inventory tasks, not titles.** List the role's tasks with weekly hours. Mark each: **AI-absorbed** (machine does it, human spot-checks) · **AI-assisted** (human does it faster) · **AI-created** (new work: prompting, verifying, correcting, supervising agents) · **Human-core** (judgment, relationships, accountability, taste). The AI-created column is the one orgs forget — verification is work, and it's in this role now.
282. **Balance the hours honestly.** Old role = 40h. Absorbed −12h, assisted −6h, created +8h → 10h of genuine capacity. The redesign decides where those hours go *on purpose*: deeper human-core work, wider scope, or reduced load. Unallocated capacity becomes silent expectation inflation within a quarter.
293. **Redefine the core.** The role's new centre is what only it can be accountable for. Write the charter in outcomes: what this role *owns* (decisions, quality bars, relationships), what it *supervises* (the AI-done work — with the verification standard stated), what it *no longer does* (named, so nobody performs it out of habit or fear).
304. **Rewrite the metrics.** Kill throughput metrics the machine now drives (tickets closed, words shipped, drafts produced) — a human evaluated on machine output is being evaluated on prompt luck. New metrics live where the human is: judgment quality (error catch rate on AI output, decision outcomes), the human-core outcomes, and supervision health. Pair with [`ai-assisted-performance-review`](../ai-assisted-performance-review/SKILL.md) for the review conversation itself.
315. **Face the ladder problem.** If AI absorbed the tasks juniors learned on, the pipeline to senior judgment is cut. The redesign states how the next cohort develops: deliberate reps on AI-done tasks (inefficient on purpose), verification apprenticeships, or a redesigned junior role — "we'll figure it out" is how professions hollow out.
326. **Plan the conversation.** The redesign lands as a change to someone's identity, not their task list. The rollout: the draft is *discussed with the people in the role before it's announced*, the "no longer does" list is framed as release not demotion, and comp/level implications are stated in the same meeting they're wondered about.
33
34## Output Format
35
36### Role Redesign: [title] — post-AI charter
37
38**Intent (stated):** [more output / fewer people / higher-value work — the org's actual answer]
39
40**Task inventory**
41| Task | Hrs before | Status | Hrs after | Note |
42|---|---|---|---|---|
43*(with the AI-created verification/supervision rows present)*
44
45**Capacity math:** [freed hours → where they were deliberately allocated]
46
47**The new charter:** Owns: […] · Supervises (with verification standard): […] · No longer does: […]
48
49**Metrics:** [dead metrics, named as dead · new metrics with definitions]
50
51**Ladder implications:** [how juniors now develop the judgment this role's seniors have]
52
53**Rollout:** [discussion-before-announcement plan · the comp/level statement · review date for the charter itself]
54
55## Quality Checks
56
57- [ ] The AI-created work (verification, supervision) appears in the inventory with hours
58- [ ] Freed capacity is explicitly allocated — no silent 140% expectation
59- [ ] At least one legacy throughput metric is explicitly killed
60- [ ] The "no longer does" list is concrete enough that someone could stop doing those things tomorrow
61- [ ] The junior-pipeline question is answered, not deferred
62- [ ] The org's intent (headcount vs scope) is stated in the document
63
64## Anti-Patterns
65
66- [ ] Do not redesign the role without the people in it — a charter discovered in a reorg deck creates the resistance it deserved
67- [ ] Do not keep old throughput metrics "for continuity" — they now measure the vendor, not the human
68- [ ] Do not treat verification as slack time — reviewing machine output at quality is skilled work with hours
69- [ ] Do not write "focus on higher-value work" without naming the work — that phrase is where redesigns go to die
70- [ ] Do not skip the intent question — a redesign that won't say whether headcount changes will be read as concealing it, correctly
Mohit Aggarwal