http://change.bbvx.org/2007/05/wake-up-call/ Musings of a sometime AAUW member Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:13:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://change.bbvx.org/2007/05/wake-up-call/comment-page-1/#comment-71 Nancy Shoemaker Sun, 06 May 2007 15:22:06 +0000 http://change.bbvx.org/2007/05/wake-up-call/#comment-71 Oh, goodness. This thread is *still* continuing over on ISF. Maybe I just haven't absorbed the gestalt of that list. But when it gets down to "for profits just want to produce more widgets more cheaply" while nonprofits are concerned about the effectiveness of their services, the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. In IT, in particular, there's the old model about the four knobs: features, cost, quality, timeframe and the fact that you can set three but not all four. That's management's job, isn't it - in any environment? Figuring out what cost is acceptable to provide what service level. In the nonprofit the costs are typically covered by a community that is different from those benefiting from the services/products (with entrepreneurial exceptions like TROSA), but the tradeoffs are similar. Management needs to predict what level of income will be generated by the activity and ensure the organization's sustainability with the accuracy of its predictions. The quality/timeframe come into the predictions. There's another quote about those motivated by quality being unable to communicate with those motivated by quantity of output. I'll see if I can find that because it, too, seems to be leading to this discussion being dragged on for quite awhile. And what's this got to do with AAUW? Well, if you have to ask ...