Point position problems

"When you use a contract vendor, especially when not locally based, to provide ongoing services, you loose the commitment and coordination you would otherwise have when those tasks are done by your own staff"   Tony De Leo

In a large organization, there are entire departments of people dedicated to a specific service or function, resulting in quality, timely outcomes.  When smaller in size, you run into "point position problems".  These are the result of assigning duties in several areas of the operation to a single person, allotting .3 FTE (full time equivalent) to X duties, .4 FTE to Y duties and .1 FTX to Z duties, allowing .2 FTE for them to accomplish everything else on their to-do list.  Requiring one person to wear many hats can result in less than optimal outcomes.  This looks great in a paper budget, but seldom works in real life.

The option, hire an outside company to preform the duties for which you do not have enough people or expertise.  For the short term on specific projects, this will work most of the time.  As to on-going, day to day operations, this can be very expensive and usually results in unmotivated and uncoordinated efforts.

Hiring people with the appropriate expertise and background can go a long way toward reaching your goals successfully and cost effectively.  If there is just not enough money in the budget or you do not need this their services full time, possibly look into sharing them with other similar agencies.

Another great day,
Tony