Odd differences between sections...
Aug. 1st, 2008 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
norsegirlJust a strange, random observation... I was originally hired by the City in Finance, Client Accounting. My client was Planning and Development. Planning purchased Kleenex for their staff. Finance did not. However, as we were on-site with Planning, we were allowed to take a box from their supplies for our desk. My second client was City Clerks. They did not purchase kleenex for their staff, we had to bring our own from home. In fact all supplies were pretty slim pickings (highlighters, pens, binders, everything but paper was in short supply really). Now I work for Corporate Properties, Buildings and Facilities maintenance and the supplies (including kleenex) are back in full force.
I wonder if it was the type of department (like finance keeps a closer eye on its budget because that's all they do) or the proximity to the elected officials (they love to question what staff really needs and what can be done without, just don't ask them to question their own expenses). Working for government is endlessly fascinating that way.
Today's task... record usage of our three meeting rooms for the last year to justify whether we really need them all or if some, all or parts of them can be converted into offices. Recording when bookings are and comparing the three rooms to find overlap is relatively easy. Time consuming but straight-forward. Figuring out usage of the rooms based on capacity (8.5 hours per working day if you include lunch) is also fairly easy. Now they've asked me to try to estimate the approximate number of people attending each meeting. This is ridiculous and impossible. The meeting invites are separate data from the room bookings so I have no way of knowing who was invited much less who attended. And even if I did have the list of invitees... would I seriously be expected to count every name for every meeting? Also, what would I do with that raw data? What kind of number would be useful there? I'm thinking averages are meaningless. And while they might be trying to figure out how often we hold 2-5 person meetings in spaces that can accommodate 20 to see if we're making good use of the space I'm still not thinking that is important. After all, if it's not being otherwise used, might as well have 2 people in there as have it stand empty.
I'm thinking this might be one of those problems you have to approach from the other angle... what is the capacity for the proposed new meeting space? How many hours worth of meetings do we have with attendance over that maximum capacity?
Of course, if you HAVE to approach it from historical data to proposal, to come up with a capacity for the new room one could also look at how many people attend the largest meetings we hold on a regular basis.
Either way, averages are irrelevant as are any meetings that end up under the intended capacity.
I wonder if it was the type of department (like finance keeps a closer eye on its budget because that's all they do) or the proximity to the elected officials (they love to question what staff really needs and what can be done without, just don't ask them to question their own expenses). Working for government is endlessly fascinating that way.
Today's task... record usage of our three meeting rooms for the last year to justify whether we really need them all or if some, all or parts of them can be converted into offices. Recording when bookings are and comparing the three rooms to find overlap is relatively easy. Time consuming but straight-forward. Figuring out usage of the rooms based on capacity (8.5 hours per working day if you include lunch) is also fairly easy. Now they've asked me to try to estimate the approximate number of people attending each meeting. This is ridiculous and impossible. The meeting invites are separate data from the room bookings so I have no way of knowing who was invited much less who attended. And even if I did have the list of invitees... would I seriously be expected to count every name for every meeting? Also, what would I do with that raw data? What kind of number would be useful there? I'm thinking averages are meaningless. And while they might be trying to figure out how often we hold 2-5 person meetings in spaces that can accommodate 20 to see if we're making good use of the space I'm still not thinking that is important. After all, if it's not being otherwise used, might as well have 2 people in there as have it stand empty.
I'm thinking this might be one of those problems you have to approach from the other angle... what is the capacity for the proposed new meeting space? How many hours worth of meetings do we have with attendance over that maximum capacity?
Of course, if you HAVE to approach it from historical data to proposal, to come up with a capacity for the new room one could also look at how many people attend the largest meetings we hold on a regular basis.
Either way, averages are irrelevant as are any meetings that end up under the intended capacity.
