![]() G'day and welcome to my diary. I'm keeping this as a record for myself; so I can better understand my own thought processes, habits and biases, but also for people who are interested in doing research and people who are interested in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of government. 'Government' is a pretty broad thing to try and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of. So in order for my brain to avoid some kind of information overload meltdown and also to research something specific enough to fit into a PhD, I'm focussing on how government manages the quality of the social services it buys every year. For example, the New South Wales Department of Family and Community Services in Australia spent roughly $1.7b last year buying services that are meant to protect and nurture families. But it has no reliable way of telling whether all that money actually bought that outcome. This strikes me and maybe you, as a big problem that needs looking at. For more info on my research check out my PhD Research Proposal. That link takes you to the original research proposal I submitted to gain entry to a PhD Research degree at the University of Sydney, but I've already revised it pretty significantly, and I'm still only in my first year of three! So, for anyone interested in doing research, I note that this 'research proposal' thing is pretty damned slippery. They (uni people) make you do it because; 1. its a waste of everyone's time if you go out and research something that people already know lots about. 2. you have to have a decent plan about how you are going to do something like 'contribute to human knowledge' or you'll just end up wandering all over the place and never finish (among other problems that come from no-planning) So the research proposal beast is a good thing ... its just hard to squash all your questions into just one small box! Anyway, I'm still working on the re-draft and I will post it up here when I'm finished. That will be before November 2017 - which is the month that my uni formally confirms my progress, so it has to be ready by then. The main revisions I'm working on include examples of the implementation of formal quality management systems in various governments around the world. I'm also trying to bolster my methodology section. This needs work if my ultimate findings are to be considered reliable and useful in understanding how things really work in government now. By 'things' I mean, how government controls quality. If you're still reading, thanks! I'll post progress on here about once a month, or more often if anything interesting happens. Have a ripper, Lee.
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AuthorHi I'm Lee, my research is about how to apply quality management systems to government; my focus is contracted social services. It's a strange and wonderful journey. ArchivesCategories |