Maybe I’m the only one who’s noticed this, but it seems to me that lots of politicians like to boast about the impact “their government programs” are making.
Whether it’s a new factory or a cleaner toxic waste site (can those get cleaner?), politicians like to not only talk about what they’ve done, but what they’re going to do.
Which is cool. Politicians gotta politik, amiright?
The problem is when a random citizen or reporter asks, “How do you prove it?” or asks for evidence of actual performance metrics.
One mega-billions program I was asked to look at could have stood for so very, very many similar situations.
When Political Promises Shape Government Metrics
The problem of political boasting isn’t idle philosophizing, since so many government programs are the dog being wagged by the tail.
When a politician claims a set of funds will do something, it’s up to the government to prove that it does, right?
The claims are always easy, and – let’s be honest – they’re only meant for the short-term regardless.
But the effects can take years to take hold, and by then there might be a new politician in charge, or the public might have just forgotten what all of this money was being spent for anyways.
Unless it, ya know, becomes a public spending disaster, and everyone wants to find out what went wrong.
Short-Term Claims, Long-Term Consequences
We’ve talked here before about failure and waste in public sector reporting, as well as metrics – and how open they are to interpretation.
So today we’re going to use a real, live, no foolin’ example of interpretive metrics in practical usage, failure, and waste.
I’m talking about “jobs.”
Boasting of all the “jobs” a program is going to create makes sense, right? We all know what it means to be unemployed, and giving someone the opportunity to provide for their family makes political, economic, and social sense— and serves as a common benchmark for government program impact.
It’s pretty simple.
So what’s the problem?
The Trouble With Counting Jobs as a Success Metric
The devil, as always, lies in the details.
Like so many politicians before him, this particular politician bragged to his constituents (and to those across the country) that “his” program would create thousands of jobs.
Problem was, nobody could prove him right – or wrong.
While the term “job” makes sense in an every day sense, as a performance metric it’s downright awful.
Let’s start with the basics: are we talking full-time or part-time. Sure, that part is often answered in the fine print, but not always.
But how do you define part-time? Some agencies define it as less than 35 hours a week.
Some as 20 hours or fewer. Some even go by 15 hours. Some go by number of days per week.
Which is right? Doesn’t matter – because all of them collect their own statistics.
Why Even ‘Full-Time’ Isn’t Universally Defined
Okay, let’s eliminate part-time jobs, since those hold less permanency in most markets.
Full-time jobs are easier, right?
Sure – as long as you can get everyone to agree that a full-time job has 40 hours per week.
Or is it 45? 35? (All 100% real measures, by the way.)
Okay, let’s say five days per week. But what if you work four 12-hour shifts per week? Is that still full-time, or are we part-time?
This isn’t a real issue when we’re talking about a local 7-11.
But let’s do the math: if we say we’re creating 1,000 jobs and our standard is 35 hours, that means 35,000 hours per week, and 1,750,000 hours per year (using 50 weeks rather than 52, to include two weeks of vacation).
If we’re using a 45-hour week? That “1,000” becomes 777, or a reduction of almost 25%.
How Definitions Can Distort Performance Reporting
This might seem like an intellectual exercise. A playful (yet potentially not all that fun?) game on a rainy Sunday, designed only to poke the holes in political announcements.
But this was one of the main metrics of the program in question.
It was the main metric used when the program was announced, it was the main metric used when the program got started, and it was the main metric used every time the politician made a stump speech (which was pretty darned often).
So the people running the program were forced to look for the one “true” authoritative voice on all of this, so that they could put that debate to rest.
Only problem?
It doesn’t exist.
The Political Risk of Poor Measurement
The truth is, this little narrative doesn’t have a happy ending.
There is no explicit solution to administering political boasts.
But we can use it as a reminder that even the simplest, most intuitive metrics – like “number of jobs” – is open to interpretation. (And which serves as a reminder why so many government performance evaluations fall apart under scrutiny.)
And so it’s up to every government project manager to sift through “what just makes sense,” and pull out only “what can be measured.” Preferably, something repeatable and verifiable — the core of any meaningful government performance metric.
Once we start challenging the numbers, hopefully we’ll find ourselves in a spot where we can pull out the measuring tape, or we can throw the whole lot out and start over.
Otherwise, start investing in a chiropractor – because looking from source to source to source pretty much guarantees whiplash.
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