More About Boxes

I have written before about moving the boxes as it relates to what level of government provides a service. If a service isn’t working at one level of government, move it to another. Decision-makers or critics often look for an organizational solution when there is a problem. Related to this is the tendency to create another management structure by moving the boxes when the current arrangement is not working.

In my previous position there was an elected executive who also had legislative responsibilities. She was the top administrator, that is, responsible for implementing policy, yet also part of the legislative body with other elected officials. This worked great when those who were elected to the positions could maintain positive relationships and were dedicated to good government. There were times when that was not the case. I can remember having conversations with a newspaper editor about wouldn’t it just be better if the executive position was separate and perhaps appointed. I would come back with “It’s the people not the boxes.”

In my current position, the top executive/administrative position is appointed by the elected body. The person in that position made our work easier because management was receptive to our audits. He valued our audit work as another piece of important information. Not once has he been defensive about our findings or interpreted them as a statement about his performance. I am hopeful that a person with similar qualities can be found now that he is leaving because I know from past experience that it’s the people in the boxes, not the box, which makes the difference. I have my fingers crossed.

TSA screeners need better training - Really?

An audit done by the inspector general at the Transportation Security Administration finds that TSA screeners need to be better trained. "One lead TSO indicated that he had not accessed the Online Learning Center since 2005. The TSO also explained that staff had limited time to read printed training materials in lieu of going online." You can understand the urgency of getting the program underway but by now there should have been some kind of assessment by the agency itself.

Arghh...

There comes a time when auditing is not as easy as just doing the work and presenting the results. The dynamics of the organization has to be considered and a strategy developed. As an auditor becomes more knowledgeable about each department in the agency, the strengths and weaknesses start to become more apparent. It's like the relationship with a person. At first you see only the good things, then you begin to see the other side. Whether the relationship will remain healthy or not depends on the ability to not personalize the deficits. You have to keep your eye on the goal and work for improvements. But it is not easy.

Savoring the Results

This has been a crazy summer so far. At first it seemed like it would never warm up. We planted our garden and then there was 2-3 weeks of hard rain. Seeds didn't sprout and existing plants suffered. Now we have had several weeks of sunshine and things are looking better, although getting to harvest is slow. What are the lessons here?

• You can't always predict when hard rain will come.
• Results might not happen on schedule.
• Sunshine always heals frustration and makes things grow.

I like the last bullet. Could be an analogy for transparency and organizational change.

Guerrilla Warfare

Thinking about a recent hiring process I was reflecting on possible differences between generations. My motivation in working for government has always been to make it more accessible, accountable and respectful to citizens. It brought to mind a book that spoke to me many years ago, Guerrillas in the Bureaucracy. I think I still have a copy in my office. I googled it and found this interesting book. I also found this article about how do deal with guerrilla bureaucrats. "Create an organization culture that accepts, welcomes, and encourages candid dialogue and debate." Yes!!

Definitely about outliers

I have always been an outlier. From a small town and yearning to be in a city. Coming from an environment that was fairly conservative, but having ideas that were not. Entering the world of art, but not fitting in. Moving on a career path that is not a straight and logical course but one with sharp turns and bumps. But definitely an outlier.

I am working on an audit right now that is also about outliers. But we are looking for outliers because this will provide evidence to evaluate whether management has done its job. What is managements' job? Is it managements' job to make employees all conform?

The real measure for an employer is the quality of the work. Employees may have differing work styles but the work quality may be worth accommodating those styles. That is why an audit should focus on effect. If accommodating different styles does not create a negative effect or actually increases effectiveness, than auditors should be tolerant of outliers in their analysis.

Outliers can also be a symptom of a problem that needs to be addressed. Rather than try to control the outlier, management instead should use it as information about organizational health. When an auditor finds this type of outlier, she can use the information to describe the effect of an organizational problem. Recommendations then would focus on the real problem, not employees who are outliers.

Entropy and the arrow of time

Here is an interesting interview in the Wired Science blog. Physicist Sean Carroll is studying time. In the interview he talks about the “arrow of time,” the fact that we can know the past but not the future. There are processes that you cannot reverse. An omelet cannot be returned to an egg. Entropy is also discussed, the idea that things become more disorderly over time. The analogy he puts forth is that you are not surprised that an orderly desk becomes messy but you would be surprised if you left a messy desk to return and find it orderly. These two concepts seem related to auditing. Auditing studies the past. In addition, we are not surprised that well-designed services over time morph into inefficient and ineffective services.

Assigning blame where it belongs

Steve Duin, a columnist in the Oregonian, wrote today about a settlement with the family of a man who died as a result of his actions and those of public officials after his arrest. Many were involved including the arresting officers, jail staff, and the ambulance personnel. The columnist worries that without the exercise of a trial that will assign blame, there will be no motivation to change. I think there should be accountability in the system, but does assigning blame motivate employees to change?

An audit steps back and looks at the structure that allowed employees to make bad decisions. When I meet with auditees, I always tell them we are auditing a program's or service's performance, not the employee's performance. What was the tone at the top or the climate that allowed police to believe that a man urinating in a trendy neighborhood required a forceful police reaction? Are police trained to recognize that sometimes a person's actions can be the result of mental illness? Do personnel treat all medical emergencies with the same urgency and care? What is the procedure for medical personnel at the jail to make medical decisions? Should medical personnel at the jail and police reassess a person's medical condition before transporting to a hospital to determine the current urgency of the situation? Training, procedures, and the management climate can make for better outcomes. An audit would review all of those and assign blame, but not to the individual, instead to the services that failed. Then maybe there would be change.

It's the road map thing again!

Two reports have come out recently at the federal level that illustrate one of the biggest weaknesses I have found in government during my career. First, the GAO has issued its second audit on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (financial bailout). I wrote about the first audit here. In summary the audit concludes the Treasury Department should increase efforts to monitor how the financial institutions are using program funds and more clearly articulate and communicate a strategic vision for the program.

The second report is from testimony to the Commission on Wartime Contracting. This Commission is mandated by Congress to study federal contracting for wartime reconstruction and performance in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was after the hard lessons learned in Iraq. In news coverage the deputy special inspector general for Iraq is quoted as saying, "Before we go pouring more money in, we really need to know what we're trying to accomplish" (in Afghanistan)."

It's the road map thing again! The hardest work in solving a problem is establishing the direction you want to go. This includes establishing guideposts, a clear direction to the location you want to arrive at, and a way of knowing when you get there. In almost every audit I've worked on we have findings about lack of clear strategy and performance measures. It's not that management doesn't know that these are important. I think its the lack of resources assigned to these activities. When you're trying to solve a problem, its difficult to spend resources that are indirectly related to that problem. But, again, if you know where you want to go and you have a map to get there, why drive with your eyes closed?

Boundaries and cultures

You may be able to rearrange the lines or move the boxes around; but philosophies, cultures, and approaches to problem solving cannot necessary be changed. This discussion on another blog is about election results and long-standing cultural divides that are not necessarily affected by redrawing the map. It made me reflect on the government environment in which I work. Over my career I have audited city, county, and now regional government. Some of the organizational problems that are identified during the audit might be attributable to historical antecedents that were not affected when boundaries were changed.

Many county services were previously managed by the state or city. The library was a non-profit organization that was brought back into the county. Police services are now primarily provided by cities; but the county operates the jails and the state operates the judicial system. At the regional level, many of the services were transferred from the city or county. Some of the services meet state-wide objectives and attempt to organize the region to meet those objectives. Finding effectiveness and efficiency in systems that operate according to different cultural norms is a challenge. Understanding the antecedents can be helpful when conducting an audit and crafting meaningful recommendations.

How do you turn things around?

I was at a conference last week that included auditors from federal, state, and local governments. As I listened to presentations and participated in discussions, it became clear to me that many times local government is far ahead of the federal level. I think that it is because government at the local level is so immediate and near. It doesn't take long to hear the echo from your constituency when they are upset.

Even comparing the federal and state audit organizations to local auditor shops, I could see the difference. There are very few levels, if any, of hierarchy at the local level. The audit director knows almost immediately what direction an audit is taking and has a close eye on audit quality and standards. At the state and local level there are levels of review and supervision before an audit is issued. This takes time and money.

So how do you turn things around in a large organization or how do you ensure that what you want the direction to be is what is occurring on the ground? It takes a concerted and dedicated effort. There are many analogies that I could think of. Imagine grabbing a 20 foot long rope and twirling around so that all of the rope was eventually off the ground. Just think how fast you would have to twirl before that final foot of rope was elevated. In large bureaucracies it may take years before the direction that you envisioned actually is reached.

Auditors can have a role in making the vision happen. Audits look at weaknesses in design and direction. As management twirls to lift that rope up, auditors can find places where weights drag the rope down.

Just a note. I am not saying that local efforts are more important. Many times those barriers to success at a local level occur because of state or federal action. So it takes us all to improve government.

Update to Sex, Drug Use and Graft

Update to a recent post. The Oregonian now has an editorial relating to the audit report that was issued last week.

GSA and Judges in a deadlock

How do you resolve conflicting objectives in an expensive government construction project? In 2002 at Multnomah County an audit was issued that grappled with this problem. The audit found that many times elected officials drove the design of projects and that this increased the scope and cost. The recommendation was to put in place an extended design and approval process so that all costs were known, including costs that might be incurred for scope creep.

The GAO released an audit yesterday that noted construction costs had tripled for a new courthouse in Los Angeles and that there was no consensus on how to proceed. After Congress had approved a design and funded a 41-courtroom, of 1,016,300-square-foot, the General Services Administration (GSA) designed a 1,279,650-square-foot courthouse that contained 54-courtrooms. There is disagreement as to why that occurred. The GSA stated it was because of the judiciary and the judiciary stated that it was a joint decision and driven in part by planning criteria, which the GSA denies.

There are now three proposals on how to proceed, but no agreement on which to choose. Any of the choices will require additional funding. The judiciary supports the most expensive option and opposes the other two more "modest" options. Construction was originally to be completed by 2006. If a decision can be made, the end date is now projected for 2013 and costs have tripled to $1.1 billion. At least the audit puts the full story in the open so that the public can see that the reasons for the cost increases are more complex than ineptitude. Here's a newspaper story covering the audit.

Why it's important to create good measures

Great guest post on NYTimes Feakonomics blog. Not only does it talk about performance measures that cause public policy to misdirect resources and efforts, but also touches on how systems can be just as important as building infrastructure.

The challenge

One of the reasons I enjoy auditing is that it allows you to challenge perceptions. Most organizations have a story that has become reality. Management often doesn't have time to step back and review landscape changes. What may have been true in the past may no longer be true. One prime example I remember from an audit long ago was library circulation. Library book circulation was reported to be steadily increasing and seemed to support management's request for increased funding. However, when auditors reviewed the statistics we found two things. Part of the increase was due to an increased ability to renew books. So the statistics didn't reflect just new books checked out but also books that were kept longer through renewal. Also, when we looked at circulation trends by branch library, we found significant differences. Both of these findings didn't necessarily suggest that the library shouldn't receive increased funding, but did suggest that the current level of funding could be managed better. It also didn't necessarily mean that management was deceptive or inept. Auditors have more time to dig into the data and find subtleties.

Just as an aside, I was reading another blog today and was directed to the Vote Studies Workbook that looks at voting history and how congressmen and women votes are aligned with their party. One of the things you can do is sort the data by various categories. I sorted by the "Member Since" column which shows the year they came to office. The oldest is from 1955, so 53 years in office. Can that be right? It would have been cool to examine the data to see how many had been in office since 2000 or to aggregate by 10 year periods. Makes you wonder how the voting history looks based upon time in office.

Operating in a political arena

Auditors for the most part tend to be cautious and reticent to be in the public eye. But here is an audit that brings facts to a politically charged arena. It resulted in an editorial in the NY Times.

I was right

Front page of the Oregonian today is a second story about Social Security. Yesterday I wrote about this story and speculated that the cause of the incredibly slow system could be lack of funding or over-proceduralization. The headline of the story - "Social Security backlog grows from lack of cash." Another difference between journalists and auditors - auditors get to write their complete findings in one report. Journalists have to write a series over several days to tell the complete story.

Procedures

Auditors are interested in process and procedures. Not that every action must be extremely detailed in writing. But that the process used was thoughtful and careful. Government should be held to a higher standard. After all, the resources we use belong to the citizens who trust us to use them wisely.

When I first started auditing I heard a lot about "pass-through" dollars. This was funding that was received from the state or federal government and was contracted out to non-profit services. There seemed to be little understanding that even though these were not dollars derived locally, they were public dollars, and that there was still a responsibility to manage their use well.

Negotiating and signing a contract for services is not all that must be done. Steps must be taken to ensure that the money was well spent. In a recent audit my office completed, we found that the scope of services was described very well and that the competitive process was strong. But the program neglected to plan for how to ensure that the agency received what was paid for.

It seems that when government responds to a crisis or takes on large projects, process breaks down. Here is a audit by Louisiana State Auditors of the emergency response to Katrina. The audit found that Louisiana could have saved millions of dollars if it had directly contracted with staff needed to monitor debris removal and manage grants from FEMA. Instead a consultant was hired who then subcontracted out these services at a 100% mark-up. Granted this was an extraordinary event and there was probably little experience or planning for something of this magnitude. But if the recommendations are followed, it will improve the reponse in the future.