Clean House/Cut the Fat

Joshua Glacken

Revise

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Have you ever seen those reality shows where a team goes into a clutter-maniac's house...stuff reaches the ceiling and you can't see the floor...and they basically clean house and remodel the inside to make it look like new?

I really think these houses are similar to where we are in the BSA. There is sooooo much stuff in our volunteer programs and internal professional structure that it is difficult to wade through and focus on what is important.

I recently read a book called "Simple Church" that discusses how churches are plagued w/ programs that are unneccessary, but they continue them out of tradition. They tire themselves out because they spend their time on unimportant tasks.

I think we have that problem in the BSA. We have so much stuff for our volunteers and staff to do that we tire out on the unimportant things.

I think the BSA needs to put a "bi-partisan" task force together to look at the whole program and what we do as professionals with a magnifying glass and determine what is important and what is not. Then, we streamline the program a bit to make it more managable.

This is basiccaly what Bob did with the National Council. Now, it is time for us to do that with our local councils and our unit programs.

Idea # 194Other,

Moderator Comments

11/14/08
From: Wayne Brock, Chief Operating Officer, Assistant Chief Scout Executive

You bring up a good point. I was the project manager of the organizational study of the national council along with McKinsey & Company. This study of the national council was the first phase. A similar study is planned for local councils & districts. However, the scope, format and timing of this study has not been set. My best guess is it is at least a year away. In the meantime, we encourage councils to do their own internal reviews.

Comments

jblackburn 1 year ago

I best describe this as total saturation. I have a supervisor 2 levels up who keeps asking everyone why they didn't understand that some low level feedback meeting request was being ignored. Total saturation is on the program side as well as the pro side and if we don't have the ability to slim it down and focus we should at least compinsate this by being more aggressive with our tech innovation practices. Project managers refer to this as "Scope Creep." The scope of our jobs gets bigger and bigger while the resources either stay the same or decrease. The private industry addresses this by simply applying a priority scale governed by resources available. Once you don't have the resources to handle a task or project properly, you cut it out...

john.clarkson 1 year ago

Yup. But there are reasons for the scope creep. One may be that mediocre volunteers will gravitate toward the mediocre tasks---regardless of how unproductive. And others may be content to let them busy themselves that way. Overall, the clutter of irrelevant tasks grows and it's increasingly harder to see what is really relevant.

wayne.brock 1 year ago

Joshua, you bring up a good point. I was the project manager of the organizational study of the national council along with McKinsey & Company. This study of the national council was the first phase. A similar study is planned for local councils & districts. However, the scope, format and timing of this study has not been set. My best guess is it is at least a year away. In the meantime, we encourage councils to do their own internal reviews.

Wayne Brock, assistant Chief Scout Executive/COO

Joshua Glacken 1 year ago

Thanks, Wayne! Please, let me know if you want any help on this project from someone in the field. I am very big on streamlining programs to make them more efficient. I'd love to help!

wayne.brock 1 year ago

Thanks for the offer. I will certainly keep you in mind as we progress.

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