CIPA part 2: Welcome to mount meta

Consultants in Public Administration: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

As I mentioned in my previous article, DRAC is requesting a method for performing a study with the purpose of reducing spending on Consultants In Public Administration (CIPA). This is basically a meta-meta-request to enable work on meta-information on public work processes. Indeed, anything that begins at a meta-meta-level tends to continue downhill in a meta-meta-meta fashion.

I have actually been in a meeting discussing how some people are dissatisfied with the fashion in which we make plans for meetings that discuss how to conduct the meeting that are supposed to bring order to the meetings discussing the actual work flow of the project.

Hard to follow? Here it is in reverse and in layers:

1. We had actual work. This work had meetings-on-demand, discussing hands-on issues.
2. So administration set up regular meetings to discuss how the work meetings should progress with least impact on individual work flow.
3. The layer-2 regular meetings were interrupting work flow, so in order to fix this, they set up meetings to discuss how the layer-2 regular meetings should be organized.
4. Quite a few people were dissatisfied with how the layer-3 meetings were interrupting work flow and seen as an unnecessary neusance. So new meetings were set up to discuss how the layer-3 meetings were to be organized.

The meetings containing actual work flow information (layer 1) were pretty much unaffected by this, other than the fact that all the meeting activities took a whole lot of time away from actual work.

Of course, layered meta-meetings is a hallmark of public administration, and is probably a good place to start changing things. Turn it into something more lean. The most meta you should get is discussing the actual work flow and how to eliminate trash observed in the processes. Hence, I believe this particular request is to begin work at the wrong end.

This should not come as a surprise. Sitting at the top of the administration, you can only observe the statistic trend in accounting, and rely on accurate reporting from those who spent the money. The questions posed show a will to reduce spending on this specific account, which is not really addressing the real issues at hand.

Consultants in Public Administration: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5