First of month - ready to change gear

Thirteen months of funding are left to me. I move in October into the third year of the PhD, my fourth year here in the OUBS. Third party monitor says you move up a gear - third year, third gear.

Methodology

Something's bugging me. It's how to match the research questions to the answers I got to my interview questions. But my interview questions were framed round the Nahapiet & Ghoshal paper, not around my research questions.

I happened to mention this niggle to my third party monitor. She asked questions about my approach, the methodology I'm using, or my research strategy for making sense of the data in order to work out where I am. She suggests I write the methodology chapter now, as a story of how I done it. She knows I'm interested in story telling and narrative analysis and suggested some reading, including looking at the methodology chapters of recent PhDs, especially from Lancaster where they stress methodology.

It was a really helpful discussion - beyond what a third party monitor's brief might be - and I'm grateful for the time and suggestions.

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Nahapiet, J. and Ghoshal, S. (1998) 'Social capital, intellectual capital, and the organizational advantage', Academy of Management Review, 23 (2), pp. 242-266. 842
PS. The bug in the photo is a wood-louse spider.

Public value

What's the problem that causes these issues:

• iteration,
  
• roles,
  
• motivation,
  
• risk,
  
• silos,
  
• media.

The problem is that government gets variable value from the external advice that it receives. The corollary is that it is accountable for maximising this value, then how is that accountability discharged? Can I ultimately come up with recommendations on how to improve that value?

Lines of enquiry
How do we define public value? Perhaps I look at the value that public receives - and trying to increase the value achieved by using external consultants through the lens of accountability
How can improvement in the management of accountability reap value from external consultancy?

Theoretically there's a framework of accountability. The relevant department has a senior responsible owner (SRO) who understands the business, and his role as a leader to exploit IT. The intelligent client is actively engaged, and clear about what wants.

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) gives advice and guidance. I could correlate the value against that advice to find the public value from consultants turning accountability into a positive thing.

Discharging accountability means getting evidence that a programme is being executed appropriately - easy with something like checking the Olympic building site is growing, but you can't see that with management change, or IT implementation.

What kind of regime could a minister or senior official put in place to discharge their accountability for the success of the programme in terms of knowing that it's going to work. How does a minister get reports about big programmes. What's the equivalent of the walkabout?

My 3rd party monitor suggested finding a plan B and doing a pilot study in summer.. I wonder who would let me in.