8.0InformalProcess.pptxInformal Process: “The lifeblood of the Administrative Process”
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Informal vs Formal Decision making Process
A paradox is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to an apparently-self-contradictory or logically unacceptable conclusion.
A paradox involves contradictory-yet-interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time
Note: Selecting the best decision-making method is a decision problem in of itself.
Because administrative decision-making is a difficult process is to deal within a view that takes many forms, especially at the informal level, one has to remember
that the public decision-maker has to operate within a constitutional framework in order for it to work.
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Real World Decision-Making
In psychology, decision-making is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several alternative possibilities.
Every decision-making process produces a final choice, which may or may not prompt action.
Decision-making is the process of identifying and choosing alternatives based on
the values, preferences and beliefs of the decision-maker.
Because informal processes are employed by all types of agencies and governance programs, the consumer of the decision may not fully understand
that he or she is involved in an informal administrative or pro forma proceeding.
The term pro forma is most often used to describe a practice or document that is provided as a courtesy or satisfies minimum requirements, conforms to a norm or doctrine, tends
to be performed perfunctorily or is considered a formality.
In law, pro forma court rulings are intended merely to facilitate the legal process (indeed to move matters along).
Pro forma audiences are used to obey a formal demand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision-making#See_also
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Participation (decision making)
Participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions – and ideally exert influence –
regarding political, economic, management or other social decisions.
Participatory decision-making can take place along any realm of human social activity, including
economic (i.e. participatory economics), political (i.e. participatory democracy or parpolity), management (i.e. participatory management), cultural (i.e. polyculturalism) or familial (i.e. feminism).
For well-informed participation to occur, it is argued that some version of transparency, e.g. radical transparency, is necessary but not sufficient.
It has also been argued that those most affected by a decision should have the most say while those that are least affected should have the least say in a topic.
Note: Negotiation and collaboration are pervasive and indeed are utilized in many cases to avoid more formal requirements that apply when
governments agencies make decisions and provide services directly.
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Sensing the Decision Environment
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Administrative skills
technical skills
legal feasible
ethical feasibility
political support
fiscal feasibility
Cultural feasibility
Questions…..
Should an agency’s administrator take on decision-making responsibility of carrying out a questionable task required by legislators who appear to lack the technical skills to accomplish the mission?
Note: With the downsizing of agency staffs, contracting out of agency technical work, and increasing competition for the task in the marketplace, it is less common to look within the agency as the primary authority in any given field.
Is it necessary to consider the legal feasible of the action under consideration?
Since agencies are creatures of law, they cannot act beyond their rang of authority.
Note: It’s necessary for the decision-maker to consider elements involving statutes, executive orders, international agreements or treaties, or contractual obligations.
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Questions……
Even when a governmental body has the legal authority to act, is it essential to consider the fiscal feasibility of the action?
Most public organizations deal with assembled budgets, consisting of appropriated funds along with various sources such as fees, finds, special funds, grants, or cooperative agreements with other organizations.
One has to ask does a public organization have the ability to organize, manage, operate, and train people in place to carry out “administrative” decisions?
As “9/11” shown, a proactive response to a major challenge demands a coordinated leadership from the federal government.
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Questions…..
Can the technical, legal, fiscal, and administrative problem-solving work without political support?
What is often the case that one of the great values inherent in experience, as compared with expertise, is the precisely the understanding of the limits of political tolerance.
Is ethical feasibility of the administrative decision-maker limited to issues of corruption or unprofessional behavior?
It is not uncommon for the administrator to be obligated to obey the political bodies that make funding available, when the administrator is asked to do more with less resources.
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Questions…..
Is it feasible for a public administrator to be effective when the organizational culture of the agency or city government places clear on the manager’s rang of possible responses to a given situation?
Cultural feasibility is an important recognition needed by the contractors who deliver services on behalf of the city, to an ever increasing diverse communities, where culture counts to the individual citizen.
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Some Factors that Shape Informal Administrative Processes
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Due Process, Efficiency, and Dispute Resolution Models
Policy Pressures
Power Law
Need for Individual Justice
Player Type
Anticipated Costs
Sunk Costs
Sunk Costs vs Anticipated Costs
Sunk costs are sometimes contrasted with anticipated costs, which are future costs that may be incurred or changed if an action is taken.
In that regard, both retrospective and prospective costs could be either fixed costs (continuous for as long as the business is in operation and unaffected by output volume) or variable costs (dependent on volume).
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Ten Commandments of Washington Law
Power Law include, but not limited to, the following:
Reputation
Intelligence
Reconnaissance
Interlocking interests
Preferential access
Lobbying
Law writing
Inundation
Delay
Corruption
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Player Type
Perhaps more than in the formal process, it maters in the informal process whether the players
are repeat players or single-shot players.
Repeat players have many more options than do single-shot players.
In many cases they are able to argue technical procedural legal points as well as or better than agency personnel or attorney representatives,
and they may have more financial and scientific resources at their disposal.
Some of these players could be from individual investors and public or private organizations ranging from
a small business to NGO’s backed by private supporters, and governmental agencies.
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Need for Individual Justice
Without the ability of the public administer to help folks through an informal process those in the greatest need may interpret the governmental process as
a rule bound, rigid, unfeeling bureaucratic, dispassionate process that cannot work outside of their own web of established rules and regulations.
An additional skill employed by the administrator is to cause the individual to act not by a positive directive or by a sanction but to
volunteer out of concern that the agency might employ a sanction at some time in the future.
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Due Process, Efficiency, and Dispute Resolution Models
Due process is the legal requirement that the state must respect all legal rights that are owed to a person. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual person from it.
When a government harms a person without following the exact course of the law, this constitutes a due process violation, which offends the rule of law
Due process has also been frequently interpreted as limiting laws and legal proceedings (see substantive due process) so that judges,
instead of legislators, may define and guarantee fundamental fairness, justice, and liberty.
Due process developed from clause 39 of Magna Carta in England. Reference to due process first appeared in a statutory rendition of clause 39 in 1354 thus:
"No man of what state or condition he be, shall be put out of his lands or tenements nor taken, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without he be brought to answer by due process of law.“
When English and American law gradually diverged, due process was not upheld in England but became incorporated in the US Constitution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_process
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Efficiency
Efficiency is the (often measurable) ability to avoid wasting materials, energy, efforts, money, and time in doing something or in producing a desired result.
In a more general sense, it is the ability to do things well, successfully, and without waste.
In more mathematical or scientific terms, it is a measure of the extent to which input is well used for an intended task or function (output).
Efficiency refers to very different inputs and outputs in different fields and industries.
Efficiency is very often confused with effectiveness.
In general, efficiency is a measurable concept, quantitatively determined by the ratio of useful output to total input.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficiency
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Dispute Resolution
Dispute resolution is the process of resolving disputes between parties.
The term dispute resolution may also be used interchangeably with conflict resolution, where conflict styles can be used for different scenarios, and is a judicial system which
supply a apparatus for resolution of antagonisms between citizens, between citizens and the government, between two state government and between the local and state governments.
Some of the methods (or models) of dispute resolution include:
lawsuits (litigation)
arbitration
collaborative law
mediation
conciliation
negotiation
facilitation
The legal system provides resolutions for many different types of disputes.
Some disputants will not reach agreement through a collaborative process.
Some disputes need the coercive power of the state to enforce a resolution.
Perhaps more importantly, many people want a professional advocate when they become involved in a dispute, particularly
if the dispute involves perceived legal rights, legal wrongdoing, or threat of legal action against them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispute_resolution
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Advantages and Disadvantages of Informal Processes
Advantages of informal process; speed and cost, and reduction of meetings.
A major concern for both administrator and for concern citizen, community group, or business that needs a decision in order to move on to their next steps.
An additional advantage is the process may take place in an atmosphere than in a more formal adversary type of proceeding.
Another advantage is a higher clearance rate.
Disadvantages involved:
increase level of discrimination by the administrator, sunk costs, increase influences from inter- organizational politics, and blocking (due to cost and time) of a formal process.
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