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\subsection{Five \subsection{Six Common Problems}
Imagine you are given an assignment:
quickly list
five things that you have seen in your job at a small liberal arts college that fit the categories "annoying," "frustrating," "waste of time," "inefficient," "poor quality product." How long would it take
you to get to five? I got to you? Here are six
before I
even noticed I had gone over the limit. will address below.
\begin{enumerate}
\item Surprise Negative Backlash When New
Solution/Policy/Idea Goes Public Policy Announced
\item Email Cascades Among Committee Members
\item
Mysterious Bad Data Analyses
Breed Distrust Create Illusion of Information
\item
Administrative Reports/Analyses that Would Not Stand Up to Normal Administrative/Committee Reports Do Note Meet Even Lax Scholarly Standards
\item Logistics of Collaboration
are Roadblock to Better More Important Than Results
\item
Lack of Documentation
Standards leads to Community Information Base Pathologies Failures Create Ignorant Communities
\end{enumerate}
\subsubsection{Backlash Firestorms \subsubsection{Surprise Negative Backlash When
Solution Developed by Small Group is Made Public} New Policy Announced}
A group of deans comes up with a new set of titles for non-tenure-track appointments. When it is announced, all hell breaks loose; it turns out they have managed to offend just about every subgroup in the
category college with their solution.
A Or a proposal for a new major is
incredibly well thought out by three faculty members but it is completely shot down by an odd coalition of
faculty members colleagues from a completely different division.
A common response to these experiences is to form larger committees, but that just invites all the pathologies of large committees (see section X).
\subsubsection{Email Cascades Among Committee Members}
A committee member sends an email raising an issue about discussion at the last meeting, ccing all. Another committee member responds hastily, and then another. Then a fourth one sees the last email but doesn't look at the previous two and responds to the sender without CCing. The
recipient\cite{brown_social_2002} recipient of this email replies to whole group but most members have not seen the previous email. And so it goes, all in the space of two hours. Then later that day one member who was away from her email writes a missive about the process. And so on and so on.
\subsubsection{Mysterious \subsubsection{Bad Data Analyses
Breed Distrust}
Have you ever seen a Create Illusion of Information}
A chart or table
is put up on the screen by a committee chair or administrator and
said either you think "that's a bad chart" or "I wonder where that came from" or "hmmmm, that doesn't seem quite right"? But neither the chart itself nor the person showing it can explain where the data came from or who made it.
Despite these shortcomings people seem to buy into it as support for that bad new policy being proposed.
\subsubsection{Administrative Reports/Analyses that Would Not Stand Up to Normal Scholarly Standards}
The critical thinking about which we so like One of the biggest reasons to
sell what doubt we
do to are doing well in the
general public teaching of critical thinking is
frequently lacking the complete absence of in
our work as stewards of our institutions. Most of the
documents reports and proposals we produce and
committee conversations we
have when we are running our organizations. Why engage in do
we not
apply anything even remotely close come up to
even the
same standards lowest of
argument, evidence, intellectual standards. Clarity, coherence, and
clarity to logic are not required. Most of our
thinking about analytical work is carried out as if the
institution? results simply do not matter.
\subsubsection{Logistics of Collaboration
are Roadblock to Better More Important Than Results}
An observant wit once noted that "collaboration is an unnatural act."
Beyond possibly being unnatural, But when we decide to work together, it is
definitely not "free," that is, successful collaboration may produce rare for any resources to be devoted to the
net benefit task beyond the challenge of
finding a
better solution, but there time when eveyrone can meet. Even though everyone of us rants about time wasted in meetings, the most aggressive thing we have ever done about it is
an energy obstacle to get over use a doodle pool to
reach this favorable state. This energy hump usually thwarts pick a good
collaboration and results in either inferior products, expensive processes, or both. time for the meeting.
\subsubsection{Lack of Documentation Standards leads to Community Information Base Pathologies}
How many times have you received an announcement or proposal of a new policy or a report from some administrative office with no date, no indication of who the author is or under whose authority the document has been distributed? How often do you get attachments with file names like "report.docx"? How often can no one find any copy of the minutes of a meeting from last semester? How often do we produce documents that incorrectly incorporate something from faculty handbooks or course catalog? How many different ways is "advanced seminar" abbreviated in our databases?
