Traditional methods of job and task analysis may be categorized as worker-oriented methods focusing on general human behaviors performed by workers in jobs or as job-oriented methods focusing on the technologies involved in jobs. The ability of both types of traditional methods to identify, understand, and communicate the skills needed in high performance workplaces is being questioned with increasing frequency. Cognitive task analysis methods, which were developed in response to the perceived weaknesses of traditional job task analysis methods, focus on understanding and describing the cognitive components associated with task performance. Worker-oriented, job-oriented, and cognitive task analyses all have their own inherent strengths and weaknesses. Worker-oriented and job-oriented methods have yet to develop vocabularies relevant to workers' cognitive activities but have a long history of successful use. Cognitive task analysis, on the other hand, appears promising in its capacity to understand workers' cognitive activities but has yet to prove itself. Rather than deciding between the traditional and cognitive approaches, researchers should develop job/task analysis methods capitalizing on the strengths of both approaches. (Contains 39 references.) (MN)