So, I think just about everyone agrees that there is too much required administrative work at the squadron level.  If you had the ability to eliminate the two least useful requirements, which ones would you choose? 

I'm so far gone from active squadron command that I just don't have enough current knowledge to answer this myself.  I had an awesome Deputy Commander for cadets and good senior staff including admin, ops, and finance that the most stressful thing I had to do was come up with activities for the senior meeting (Squadron Commander ran those personally the way we did it then). 

1. The monthly safety report. The amount of focus on this report borders on cultish. It is a meaningless data point that means nothing in terms of the squadron's readiness for ES, AE, or Cadet Programs. But God help you if you want to have your safety meeting on the second week of the month instead of the first because you'll be fielding phone calls from wing because you are making them look bad, and they are getting phone calls from region because wing is making them look bad. Just let me put it on the calendar in e-Services; you don't need an attendance log because no one has ever cared if one person attended the safety briefing or if 100 persons did.

2. The Washington Wing activity program was for the last several years a time suck that killed 90% of activity in the wing. Thankfully, that horrifyingly bad policy has finally been formally rescinded this week. We no longer need a safety, legal, and 3 levels of leadership review with a 30 day lead time to do a color guard. Huzzah!

2a. If I can't count the program that just got rescinded, I'd say the next thing would be our signature requirements and recordkeeping requirements for finance committees at the unit level. A finance module in which motions could be entered and those on the committee could just log in and hit APPROVE/DENY and a digital signature in the same format would make one of the biggest compliance headaches disappear.

Quote from: Holding Pattern on July 17, 2021, 12:01:35 AM1. The monthly safety report. The amount of focus on this report borders on cultish. It is a meaningless data point that means nothing in terms of the squadron's readiness for ES, AE, or Cadet Programs. But God help you if you want to have your safety meeting on the second week of the month instead of the first because you'll be fielding phone calls from wing because you are making them look bad, and they are getting phone calls from region because wing is making them look bad. Just let me put it on the calendar in e-Services; you don't need an attendance log because no one has ever cared if one person attended the safety briefing or if 100 persons did.

2. The Washington Wing activity program was for the last several years a time suck that killed 90% of activity in the wing. Thankfully, that horrifyingly bad policy has finally been formally rescinded this week. We no longer need a safety, legal, and 3 levels of leadership review with a 30 day lead time to do a color guard. Huzzah!

2a. If I can't count the program that just got rescinded, I'd say the next thing would be our signature requirements and recordkeeping requirements for finance committees at the unit level. A finance module in which motions could be entered and those on the committee could just log in and hit APPROVE/DENY and a digital signature in the same format would make one of the biggest compliance headaches disappear.

I'm not really tracking on much of these.

1. I don't see an issue with logging Safety Education for statistical purposes. Maybe it doesn't do much to show the health of a safety program, but I think it shows which units at least attempt to engage the subject (and a review of what the subjects are). To make it a little more effective for recordkeeping, it should really have a "Details" box where you can summarize the subject matter, not just the title.

2. This sounds like a very Wing-specific ordeal, and extremely nonsensical.

2a. This also sounds like a Wing-specific ordeal. Finances are maintained within the Wing, not nationally. Our Wing has a supplement to the regulation in regard to the forms we use. What I don't like is having to sign and pass around a PDF which needs to be electronically signed and shared via email through several members before being sent off to Wing. But it's not really a difficult process. Where it gets held up is the other members signing the form and returning it.

Quote from: Holding Pattern on July 17, 2021, 12:01:35 AMA finance module in which motions could be entered and those on the committee could just log in and hit APPROVE/DENY and a digital signature in the same format would make one of the biggest compliance headaches disappear.

This has to be one of the best ideas for an eServices mod that I've heard in years.

V/r
Spam

There's been an administrative burden reduction working group going for some time now. I think they got crushed under the weight of the paper they were generating... (I kid!)

One thing I've done is tried hard to eliminate units reporting anything thats not required in the current regs, or anything that duplicates data that's already accessible to higher HQ.

Some years ago, squadrons were asked to report their membership numbers.  When submitting my monthly report to wing, I'd dutifully login to eServices, note the number of people I had and then transcribe that number on to the form. Oh, and we had to report our losses and gains.

All of this was available to the wing staff. WHY AM I DOING IT AGAIN?

And all of that "make work" didn't even get looked at or acted upon by anybody at the wing.

Nobody ever called me to say "Hey, your numbers are off" or "Why aren't you recruiting people?" or anything. I started making up numbers, just to see. Nary a whistle. (I even put in the middle of a paragraph in my report once "If you actually read this paragraph, I'll give you $5 at wing staff meeting, just find me and tell me." That finsky is still tucked in my wallet something like 15 years later)  It was then and there that I vowed that any wing staff job I had would not require extraneous or duplicate reporting from the field.

 

Quote from: NIN on July 18, 2021, 01:29:45 AMThere's been an administrative burden reduction working group going for some time now. I think they got crushed under the weight of the paper they were generating... (I kid!)

Ok, that got a snicker. But seriously, every idea the working group came up with essentially boiled down to "IT needs to add something to eServices to make this easier." The IT folks said, "yeah great, we should get around to it around 2038."

Quote from: Fubar on July 18, 2021, 08:35:57 AM

Quote from: NIN on July 18, 2021, 01:29:45 AMThere's been an administrative burden reduction working group going for some time now. I think they got crushed under the weight of the paper they were generating... (I kid!)

Ok, that got a snicker. But seriously, every idea the working group came up with essentially boiled down to "IT needs to add something to eServices to make this easier." The IT folks said, "yeah great, we should get around to it around 2038."

Great... just in time for the Y2038 Epochalypse!   

Quote from: Fubar on July 18, 2021, 08:35:57 AMevery idea the working group came up with essentially boiled down to "IT needs to add something to eServices to make this easier." T

Is a report from this working group available? 
I wouldn't be very impressed if they didn't come up with anything that could be eliminated.

Quote from: NIN on July 18, 2021, 01:29:45 AMI started making up numbers, just to see. Nary a whistle. (I even put in the middle of a paragraph in my report once "If you actually read this paragraph, I'll give you $5 at wing staff meeting, just find me and tell me." That finsky is still tucked in my wallet something like 15 years later) 

That's absolutely brilliant.  I would even go so far as to suggest this, only slightly tongue in cheek, as a "best practice" for rooting out unnecessary reporting requirements!

Quote from: Fubar on July 18, 2021, 08:35:57 AM

Quote from: NIN on July 18, 2021, 01:29:45 AMThere's been an administrative burden reduction working group going for some time now. I think they got crushed under the weight of the paper they were generating... (I kid!)

Ok, that got a snicker. But seriously, every idea the working group came up with essentially boiled down to "IT needs to add something to eServices to make this easier." The IT folks said, "yeah great, we should get around to it around 2038."

Well if IT would let other IT professionals who just happen to be members of CAP to help them they might just get around to projects just a bit quicker.
But no, they will not accept any kind of help.

Quote from: RiverAux on July 18, 2021, 12:10:26 PM

Quote from: Fubar on July 18, 2021, 08:35:57 AMevery idea the working group came up with essentially boiled down to "IT needs to add something to eServices to make this easier." T

Is a report from this working group available? 
I wouldn't be very impressed if they didn't come up with anything that could be eliminated.

I'll be honest: I don't know. Impression I have in the back of my mind is that the working group is still active and just has not come up with a comprehensive report.

Then again it could be one of those situations where the effort just sort of ground to a halt in the face of competing requirements and/or waiting on other things to fall into place. Like I said I just don't know.

Also as an information technology professional, I know for a fact that the solution isn't always to throw more IT resources at something.

Far too many of the companies I provide support to think that the answer to their business problems is some kind of tech. In reality, the vast majority of the problems they have are more rooted in organizational or human capital issues:  they don't have a firm handle on how they do business or what the components of their business processes are. Lacking knowledge of your specific business means that throwing tech at something you don't understand is throwing good money after bad and will exacerbate your problems.  A good business analyst or a comprehensive subject matter expert in a specific line of business is worth their weight in gold.

Quote from: NIN on July 18, 2021, 05:32:48 PMthey don't have a firm handle on how they do business or what the components of their business processes are.

CAP in a nutshell...

I did a little research on the structure of  USAF squadrons, which seem to be organized in a very task oriented way. Emphasis was clearly on the operational mission. Staff sections included operations, planning, training, maintenance and safety - not much else,

Perhaps one possible answer to overworked squadron commanders is restructuring squadron staffs by moving support functions (for instance admin, personnel,  recruiting, finance) to group or wing level.

This would particularly prove helpful to squadrons that only have a handful of seniors.

Quote from: ZigZag911 on July 19, 2021, 12:43:46 AMPerhaps one possible answer to overworked squadron commanders is restructuring squadron staffs by moving support functions (for instance admin, personnel,  recruiting, finance) to group or wing level.

Not a bad idea, gives Group a legit function and mission in maintaining standards,
potentially removes SUI's from units altogether (which are a SPECTACULAR WASTE OF TIME FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED).

Like most SUIs, I gave up 1/2 way through on making anything "better" in the word above, and just
punched the ticket to get it done.

A couple key principles and then a few thoughts:

#1:  Cage your expectations. Our admin ops are not remotely like the USAF, and our worst two processes may radically differ between units based on circumstances.

#2:  Don't change anything just to change it, or to "reduce paperwork" without analysis first. You may be making it worse...


Start with identifying the tasks required to conduct our business; from unit to Group to Wing to Region to NHQ, do a Critical Task Analysis of what needs to be done, within what time frame(s) and with what dependencies. Then quantify the resulting information flows and the products needed (a report, a status, a request/response, an alert, etc.).

Then step back and look at what makes sense to automate, what to make a manual task, and what key decision making steps require single or multiple control inputs (e.g. finance committee actions, boards of review). Look for commonalities and redundancies and eliminate what doesn't make sense or is outdated/clutter.

Then, design the back end data structure, and the front end UI, only after those diagrammed flows are complete and the questions are answered. The user interface for eServices and the learning systems/axis is an absolute dogs breakfast of mismatched and nonsensical options that are not functionally grouped, haven't even got a common taxonomy (naming system), and are not even alphabetized, but charitably we could say that is partly a result of not following a good design process - and of multiple years of tacked on, ad hoc IT fixes by people who don't specialize in usability.

Will any of this happen? No. These are standard systems engineering design processes, and CAP NHQ has never followed that. NHQ has repeatedly demonstrated an inability to effectively seek, empower, hold accountable, and support volunteer help, and NHQ doesn't have the cash to pay for enough staff to do it the right way. So, we're left with limping along year after year with patches on the iceberg holes in the hull.

So, "cage your expectations". This isn't a properly designed battle management system for the USAF run by pro Airmen, this is the bargain basement bake sale local flying ES club system run by volunteers with a tiny handful of paid staff. Flower where you're planted and focus on the local fixes.

V/r
Spam

Quote from: TheSkyHornet on July 17, 2021, 02:12:11 AM1. I don't see an issue with logging Safety Education for statistical purposes. Maybe it doesn't do much to show the health of a safety program, but I think it shows which units at least attempt to engage the subject (and a review of what the subjects are). To make it a little more effective for recordkeeping, it should really have a "Details" box where you can summarize the subject matter, not just the title.

And what is the mission benefit?

We don't track any other metric more closely in this org than safety briefings. Not safety issues, safety briefings.

Have we used that data to do anything actionable with it? Have we studied what topics people are using and built anything useful to the membership with it?

I mean we could even have used it as a surrogate for active membership vs non-showing "on the rolls" membership and I haven't even heard of that being done.

Were it not for my brutally honest nature I'd enter nonsense into the safety data just to see if I ever got a phone call for doing a safety briefing on the dangers of squelch juice leaking from radios.

Until something is done with it though, the mandatory safety reporting is make-work that does one thing and one thing only: It wastes the time of the membership on make-work with no productive result.

Quote from: Holding Pattern on July 22, 2021, 07:46:40 PM[...] see if I ever got a phone call for doing a safety briefing on the dangers of squelch juice leaking from radios.

I have a PowerPoint deck for that if you need it.  In the event you need it,  I also have a deck covering "Blinker Fluid - safe handling & disposal practices." Real barn burner

Quote from: NIN on July 22, 2021, 10:24:44 PM

Quote from: Holding Pattern on July 22, 2021, 07:46:40 PM[...] see if I ever got a phone call for doing a safety briefing on the dangers of squelch juice leaking from radios.

I have a PowerPoint deck for that if you need it.  In the event you need it,  I also have a deck covering "Blinker Fluid - safe handling & disposal practices." Real barn burner

Keep that barn burner away from the flight line and the box of grid squares - I understand that they are very flammable.

Quote from: Holding Pattern on July 22, 2021, 07:46:40 PM

Quote from: TheSkyHornet on July 17, 2021, 02:12:11 AM1. I don't see an issue with logging Safety Education for statistical purposes. Maybe it doesn't do much to show the health of a safety program, but I think it shows which units at least attempt to engage the subject (and a review of what the subjects are). To make it a little more effective for recordkeeping, it should really have a "Details" box where you can summarize the subject matter, not just the title.

And what is the mission benefit?

We don't track any other metric more closely in this org than safety briefings. Not safety issues, safety briefings.

Have we used that data to do anything actionable with it? Have we studied what topics people are using and built anything useful to the membership with it?

I mean we could even have used it as a surrogate for active membership vs non-showing "on the rolls" membership and I haven't even heard of that being done.

Were it not for my brutally honest nature I'd enter nonsense into the safety data just to see if I ever got a phone call for doing a safety briefing on the dangers of squelch juice leaking from radios.

Until something is done with it though, the mandatory safety reporting is make-work that does one thing and one thing only: It wastes the time of the membership on make-work with no productive result.

As a safety compliance professional, mandatory reporting can be extremely beneficial is it is utilized to improve safety programs and culture throughout an organization; but I think that's where we lack. I can't say what the National Safety Team is working on over the next couple of years. I would hope that they would be focusing on this as part of their SMS overhaul. I would advise against pointless newsletters which impact a small niche of personnel being distributed to everyone. It becomes gibberish and clutters up the communications lines; thus, resulting in a disregard of further communications which may or may not be more pertinent/valuable.

Quote from: ZigZag911 on July 19, 2021, 12:43:46 AMI did a little research on the structure of  USAF squadrons, which seem to be organized in a very task oriented way. Emphasis was clearly on the operational mission. Staff sections included operations, planning, training, maintenance and safety - not much else,

Perhaps one possible answer to overworked squadron commanders is restructuring squadron staffs by moving support functions (for instance admin, personnel,  recruiting, finance) to group or wing level.

This would particularly prove helpful to squadrons that only have a handful of seniors.

I have expressed this opinion quite frequently on and off CT.

Every military organization is structured downstream to fulfill focus missions. In an Air Force comparison, our squadrons act more like wings, and our wings act like numbered air forces (with obvious roster size disparities).

A significant issue that we have in many squadrons is that there isn't resourcing (manpower, logistics) to necessarily support multiple unit-level missions. A squadron of 5 active senior members trying to run a cadet program of 20 cadets requires: Commander, Safety Officer, Finance Officer, and Testing Officer at a very minimum. Throw in additional personnel and support needs that may or may not be shared hats: Leadership Officer or Deputy Commander for Cadets, Logistics Officer, Personnel or Administration Officer, Public Affairs Officer, Aerospace Officer, etc. It's a severe burden on seniors alone at running a cadet unit with such short staffing. Throw in an Emergency Services mission into that same unit, and now you're not just managing cadets, but also training elements which may or may not include cadets (really, unrelated to the CP aspect).

A unit of 5 seniors cannot manage a fully functional cadet program, emergency services program, external aerospace outreach program, fundraising program, public affairs program, and air operations program all as part of one unit. It's not possible. Even if all 5 committed as a full time day job, the quality would be so diminished, and people would be beyond overworked.

That unit needs to decide what it wants to do versus what it can do and try to work on a plan for how to get there. This is where squadrons fail because it's in the minority that you have a squadron that small that can actually expand...in a short period of time, say, 1 year...and do it well and maintain effective functionality in all of those expanded areas. We don't have an education program that trains these individuals to be capable of doing that.

No offense to anyone: But if the average "small town unit" is a commander without a college degree, two parents who just joined to help their kid succeed in a youth program with no military experience, and one certified public account who stopped performed as a CPA sixteen years earlier and today serves as a church pastor...how is that unit going to be able to run a cadet program plus all of these other mission capabilities? There's obviously no one-size fits all structure, and there's no experience or qualification level to hold these positions, but if you do not have the education nor the experience to be capable of performing in those roles to where you can actually manage an activity scope of this magnitude, it's a setup for failure (not by the overall organization...by the person literally in charge of that unit).

A unit commander who is grossly unequipped to expand the unit to perform all of these functions needs to really grasp the reality of "Am I physically resourced and capable to do all of these things?" An intent without a plan of action is a dream without sentience.