[LINK] CSIRO quizzed on $9.47m web site

[Deus Ex Machina]

Craig Sanders [cas at taz.net.au] wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 12:08:35PM +1100, Deus Ex Machina wrote:
> > Craig Sanders [cas at taz.net.au] wrote:
> > > On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 08:44:20AM +1100, Deus Ex Machina wrote:
> > > > you will not find corporate spending $10m on a web site because
> > > > there is a chain of accountabilbity and not an open cheque book
> > > > policy.
> > >
> > > actually, you would. they're just as clueless as public servants.
> >
> > in a well run corporate you will not get to spend money without an
> > appropriate business case justifying the expenditure.
> 
> where do you get these ideas from?  they bear no relationship to reality.

every business I have worked for or been involved with. 

> there is far less accountability in the private sector than there is in
> public.  management does what they want, and if they screw up they find
> someone beneath them to blame it on.

yes dilbert.

> how do you measure the outcomes of, say, something like Lifeline?  do you
> measure success by the number of people who DON'T commit suicide every year -
> by that measure, the success rate is something like 99.99999999%. 

come one you want to talk about cluefull then you come out with this.
you can track call abandonment, follow up surveys. etc etc. how do you
know an operator is doing a good job if you dont follow up or check?

>or do you
> measure failure by the number of people who DO commit suicide - and completely
> ignore external factors and events like unemployment, inflation, interest
> rates, relationship breakdowns, the relentless rise of the corporate
> controlled state, and other depressing issues - which Lifeline have no control
> or influence over?
> perhaps you measure it by throughput - and penalise counsellors who spend too
> long on any one phone call? ("i'm sorry, your time is up.  please call back
> tomorrow night.  oh, and try not to kill yourself before then, OK?")
> all you can do is analyse history and current events, project into the future,
> add a fudge factor for " the unexpected", budget and plan and then hope that
> your resource allocations are sufficient to meet the actual demand (rather
> than just the projected demand).

I find your cynicism is self fullingly demoralising. maybe I am just a
misguided optimist but I dont see your pesimistic world. the world is
what you choose to make of it, if you choose to see as demoralising then
thats your choosen hell.

how does lifeline know which of its operators are the super stars and
which are not if it doesnt measure some forms of outcomes? how does
lifeline know which processes work and which dont if it doesnt measure?

its all very good to say throw a bunch of operators on the phone and
help people, but how do you know which are helping and which are not?
surely lifeline would be of more benefits if it rooted out bad operators or
at least educated them with the processes of good operators.

this involves measurement.

> > > > this measurability and accountability needs to difuse itself down
> > > > to dept and projects. this would quickly eliminate shocking waste
> > > > of tax payers money like this.
> > >
> > > it would (and does!) result in shocking waste of tax-payers money by
> > > turning everyone into accountants.
> >
> > not true, it would uncover the nonproductive pretty quickly though.
> 
> you obviously have no contact with people providing welfare or counselling
> services.  the amount of time wasted on accounting for their entire day (as if
> they were billable hours in some legal or accounting practice) *always* comes
> up in conversation.

people that dont perform always have a problem with measurement. people
that do shouldnt. its not just quantity of time that is measured but quality of
the outcome. did the outcome live up to the standards set. what use is
10 hours of couseling if it did not have an outcome? someone is paying
for this time, this money needs to be justified both from the view of
the people paying and the recipient.

it should be law that all budget outcomes are measurable, measured and
targets set to determine funding.

Vic