3 ms·

I hate these tropes that exist somewhere in the "rules of thumb and vague proverbial advice that can be twisted to mean anything" space. Known metrics become t

I hate these tropes that exist somewhere in the "rules of thumb and vague proverbial advice that can be twisted to mean anything" space. Known metrics become targets. Unknown metrics destroy morale. At the end of the day there is no stupid proof easy rule of thumb shortcut that replaces the need for people to do their jobs properly.

protomyth 6y ago
Its not really a metric. Its a spot check of the known metric. Not much different then pulling some random invoices and deciding if you need to do a full audit.
- airhead969 6y ago
  I agree. Defense-in-depth in terms of risk management. Use many strategies, in depth and breadth, holistically to manage vendors. There is no single magic action to make vendors do good work and be competent. It's lots of annoying managerial effort, but hopefully it's prevention and effort applied effectively. I think just showing up, having a look around, treating vendors as human, and being curious without annoying curious about what's going on goes a ways to show there's humans and not just nameless a corporation behind a project.
airhead969 6y ago
Trust but verify / you don't get what you expect but what you inspect. Random but easy to inspect riders in a contract helps signal if the other parties read the contract in its entirety rather than just set it aside. The basis for it was avoiding injuries from inattentive, incompetent, and/or negligent electricians and riggers in particular. It's merely one technique among many in a holistic strategy of risk management. It's not a Silver Bullet panacea and it doesn't work everywhere.
vharuck 6y ago
I've found "brown M&M" tests are good for telling me how much I need to investigate things. For example, let's say your job includes verifying data submitted by hundreds of hospitals. You don't have the time to do deep investigations for all of them, so you use a script to look for red flags (e.g., discharge date preceding admission date). If there are no red flags, you still quickly look over a small sample. If there are red flags, now you're going to spend a lot of time looking for any errors and their causes. And it's not just to save time. You're only human, so trying to be thorough with every submission will likely result in you getting sloppy because all those reviews of good submissions gives you a false sense of security.

protomyth 6y ago

Its not really a metric. Its a spot check of the known metric. Not much different then pulling some random invoices and deciding if you need to do a full audit.

airhead969 6y ago
I agree. Defense-in-depth in terms of risk management. Use many strategies, in depth and breadth, holistically to manage vendors. There is no single magic action to make vendors do good work and be competent. It's lots of annoying managerial effort, but hopefully it's prevention and effort applied effectively. I think just showing up, having a look around, treating vendors as human, and being curious without annoying curious about what's going on goes a ways to show there's humans and not just nameless a corporation behind a project.

airhead969 6y ago

Trust but verify / you don't get what you expect but what you inspect. Random but easy to inspect riders in a contract helps signal if the other parties read the contract in its entirety rather than just set it aside. The basis for it was avoiding injuries from inattentive, incompetent, and/or negligent electricians and riggers in particular. It's merely one technique among many in a holistic strategy of risk management. It's not a Silver Bullet panacea and it doesn't work everywhere.

vharuck 6y ago

I've found "brown M&M" tests are good for telling me how much I need to investigate things. For example, let's say your job includes verifying data submitted by hundreds of hospitals. You don't have the time to do deep investigations for all of them, so you use a script to look for red flags (e.g., discharge date preceding admission date). If there are no red flags, you still quickly look over a small sample. If there are red flags, now you're going to spend a lot of time looking for any errors and their causes. And it's not just to save time. You're only human, so trying to be thorough with every submission will likely result in you getting sloppy because all those reviews of good submissions gives you a false sense of security.