[Cadre-politics] fundraising VISTA job description

[Dan MacNeil]

Melissa Carino insightfully writes in a different message.

 > You may want to ask UTEC (ha!  just noticed
 > Jessica is cc'd here) for the job description
 > they have used for grant-writers in the VISTA
 > program.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this reminder on the 
importance of a good job description and work plan.

Last year, I think we had a decent Workplan, (attached). The 
problem today was the first time anyone has looked at it since 
Eric signed it nearly a year ago.

For next year, (hopefully with Eric), I want to do more regular 
and more formal evaluations tied to workplans.

My experience and some very, very good empirical research suggest 
that it is very, very difficult to good numbers based performance 
measurement.

	1) People game the system, they push up the
	   numbers without accomplishing the goal.

	2) It is hard to pick meaningful measures
	
	3) It is hard to pick all the important measures

	4) pushing on one measure distorts others.

In my personal experience, I've been part of a large organization 
working on a project that was super useful, but killed because it 
didn't fit the plan.

A very, very good book on the subject that is not too hard to 
read is:

http://www.amazon.com/Measuring-Managing-Performance-Organizations-Robert/dp/0932633366/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196263619&sr=1-2

The solution (according to the book) is not avoid measurement but 
to treat it as a tool for the worker not the manager.

We're so small that I'm not sure this is possible, but perhaps 
the same effect can be gotten, by making an effort not to be a 
dick about the whole thing.

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