"...All the cynicism about bureaucrats wanting to look good might be true..."
No cynicism was intended. I'm simply trying to share my direct experiences, as indicated. My interests are in solving this problem, not throwing mud around and claiming it is impossible. When given a bucket of money, a vague and somewhat impossible task, people create systems of allocation and reporting that show progress, even though no actual progress is being made.
This has nothing to do with the government, government programs, or bureaucrats -- one of the big mistakes funded startups do is generate a lot of activity and paperwork without generating any results. There are a ton of startups generating mountains of paperwork -- reports, contracts, studies, research, white papers, market position statements, etc -- that will never have enough business to break even. Why? Because results are freaking hard, that's why. It's difficult to dynamically create a flow diagram full of ideas of various providence and adjust and tweak it as necessary. Much easier to construct some other, simpler measurement criteria that's more doable and simply measure against that. This is an attribute of groups of people put into stressful, complex, and difficult-to-tract situations that have to report to other groups. Organizational setting is not important. Apologies if somehow it read cynically. There is a great tolerance for dealing with uncertainty involved in the area of value creation that most people, frankly, find very uncomfortable.
No cynicism was intended. I'm simply trying to share my direct experiences, as indicated. My interests are in solving this problem, not throwing mud around and claiming it is impossible. When given a bucket of money, a vague and somewhat impossible task, people create systems of allocation and reporting that show progress, even though no actual progress is being made.
This has nothing to do with the government, government programs, or bureaucrats -- one of the big mistakes funded startups do is generate a lot of activity and paperwork without generating any results. There are a ton of startups generating mountains of paperwork -- reports, contracts, studies, research, white papers, market position statements, etc -- that will never have enough business to break even. Why? Because results are freaking hard, that's why. It's difficult to dynamically create a flow diagram full of ideas of various providence and adjust and tweak it as necessary. Much easier to construct some other, simpler measurement criteria that's more doable and simply measure against that. This is an attribute of groups of people put into stressful, complex, and difficult-to-tract situations that have to report to other groups. Organizational setting is not important. Apologies if somehow it read cynically. There is a great tolerance for dealing with uncertainty involved in the area of value creation that most people, frankly, find very uncomfortable.