Outsourcing

It is surprising that one of the problems with government outsourcing is that contract officers are overwhelmed because "the number of government workers overseeing contracts has remained the same as spending has shot up." ( In Washington Private Contractors Are Taking On Their Biggest Role Ever, New York Times, February 3, 2007, A1, A24)

One of the lessons that corporations learned from the 1990's research on downsizing is that managing the outsourced functions is of critical importance and that human and financial resources devoted to these tasks has to be increased.

Surely what was sauce for the corporate goose should also be sauce for the government gander.

I suppose on reflection I should not be surprised, this lack of oversight is on a par with the inadequate resources allocated by this administration to Iraq, to the Katrina clean-up, and to veteran health care. This failure to learn from social science research is on a par with the failures at Abu Ghraib.

The author is a former professor of management who has written on downsizing.

Sent to New York Times