Ask someone to explain away their own work as simply a set of discrete tasks, and they’ll likely resist, insisting that it’s a lot more than just that.

But ask them to break down someone else’s job, especially one they don’t understand well, and the task model starts to feel plausible.

That’s the trap - believing other people’s work is just a bundle of tasks, because you don’t see the constraints their role resolves.

When we define jobs purely in terms of tasks, we risk overlooking the constraints that jobs are designed to manage.

These very constraints – the context within which those tasks are performed, the coordination required to sequence tasks to get actual work done, and the risk that needs to be managed if something goes wrong – hold jobs together.

Excerpt from Reshuffle: