Program Completion and Management Action Delay

Public organizations are generally hampered by sluggish management processes. Quarterly or longer delays from the recording of transaction data to management action are commonplace. While usually attributed to statutes, regulations and tradition, the underlying factors are process delays from operational monitoring to management action. Excellence in service organizations is advanced by overcoming delays in the management process. These delays, deleterious to service program completion, exist in (1) recording and processing of transactional data, (2) transmission of data to the State government database, (3) downloading agency specific data, (4) development of management information and (5) management action. A computer simulation of this kind of management process on a monthly monitoring cycle displays the superiority of the ideal, real-time monitoring and immediate informed management action.

In the diagram above, the trajectory of the plan represents the real-time management action ending the program at 98% completion. A realistic and practical target, i.e. a month of monitoring and management action after a month of operation demonstrated a near-ideal 94% completion of program target. This results from either tradition or resignation to the tenet that agile management of public services is unnecessary. In another simulation, after a quarter of operation, the processing of transaction data into management information and action exhibited a low program completion of 73% one month later.

MgmtLaboratory staff developed the computer simulation model above to compare the effects on service delivery of delay in monitoring and concomitant management action. One-month and four-month delays in management actions were compared with ideal program implementation. This simulation model was built around a hypothetical case of an agency contracted to enroll 11,000 to a service within a twelve month contract period. A team with the capacity of 1,000 clients enrolled per month was organized according to estimated worker productivity and trained to operate at full capacity on January 2 of the contract year. A reduction in headcount was planned beginning in October to wind down in December. This operational flexibility is possible with well-trained teams and a defined service delivery process. To simplify the study, the model does not take into consideration the deleterious effect of bad decisions on program completion.