[workforce-planning] FW: Meeting Report

[Hall, Tom]

I am just back from 12 days away and what with a large number of
e-mails, cannot respond in any detail.  As you get into significant work
with my model probably best to give me a call and we can talk about the
details.  Also, if it ever would be useful and one of your staff is
passing by the West coast, I could spend the day [with lodging at my
home] providing a hands-on introduction to the inner workings of the
model.
 
Re: the duration of the projection, I agree with Peter that short-term
projections do not really allow any exploration of alternative
scenarios.  I think this is a major limitation of John's model, at least
as far as higher level personnel are concerned.  However, for shorter
term planning his maximum of 10 years is useful.  As noted in the
workshop, is approach does not easily lend itself to developing
scenarios.
 
All the best in your work.  Tom

________________________________

From: workforce-planning-bounces at lists.intrahealth.org
[mailto:workforce-planning-bounces at lists.intrahealth.org] On Behalf Of
Shannon Turlington
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 12:13 PM
To: Technical advisory team discussion list for developing workforce
planning software.
Subject: [workforce-planning] FW: Meeting Report



Hello, all:

I wanted to pass on Peter's excellent comments to the rest of the
group-they are copied below. I think this is a good time to start
discussing the open questions that remain for the software development.
Even though beginning with John Dewdney's model gives us a simple
foundation to build upon, there are still many questions that must be
addressed.

 

A couple of the most important questions, which Peter brings up below,
have to do with the length of the projection and projecting
requirements. In this first iteration, should we cap projections at a
relatively short timespan? If we want to allow longer projections, what
adjustments might need to be made to the Dewdney model?

 

It was also not clear to me how best to project requirements from John's
spreadsheet. I think there needs to be a great deal of discussion around
how we want to project requirements in this first iteration, always
keeping in mind that we can start simple and build on that in future
versions.

 

I have captured all the open questions for discussion on our wiki at
http://open.intrahealth.org/wiki/index.php/Questions_for_Discussion. You
can post comments there (you will need to create an account) or post
them to the this website. I have also posted a summary of how the first
iteration is proposed to work here:
http://open.intrahealth.org/wiki/index.php/Iteration_1:_Summary_of_Funct
ions. This is certainly still up for discussion.

 

On a personal note, as many of you know I am expecting a child and I am
about to start my maternity leave (on Monday!). In my absence, Jess
Mitchell (jmitchell at intrahealth.org) and Luke Duncan
(lduncan at intrahealth.org) will be facilitating this conversation as they
continue to finalize the software specifications and program the
software. They will be contacting this list frequently with questions
and items for your review. It has been my pleasure to help bring this
effort this far and I look forward to seeing the results when I return
to work in the summer.

 

Shannon

 

From: p&b hornby [mailto:p-bhornby at p-bhornby.demon.co.uk] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 7:42 AM
To: Shannon Turlington
Cc: 'Hall, Tom'; j.dewdney at unsw.edu.au
Subject: Meeting Report

 

Dear Shannon, Just a quick note. I have no comments or additions to make
to your Washington meeting report. I did want to add one or two
observations following on from John Dewdney's note to you on the
relationship between his and Tom's models.

 

1.	All models of this type have to address the same set of
parameters. How they do it will differ. 
2.	All John's tables are contained in Tom's model but they are
constructed differently to meet the different needs of the target
service and service personnel. 
3.	John's model aimed at small island states, small countries and
possibly country districts is such that if you do not have the data it
is not a huge problem to find it. One example is the age breakdowns in
John's table. Not too difficult to find if you are dealing with 500 to
1000 staff but pretty well impossible when you are dealing with 50,000
staff. 
4.	Similarly with the types of institutions and staffing.
Relatively easy with small number of institutions but much more
difficult with large number's. Tom's model devotes quite a number of
tables to doing just this which are rather hidden under John's cover
table. 
5.	If you want to produce a three to five year projection, you
really are not dealing with strategy because of the long delay between
training changes and new outputs. The consequence of this is that you
would want to change the model structure to give more emphasis to
outcomes of short term actions. 
6.	One final point in the programming structure. This was to try
and contain any table to a single A4 size so you did not have to cope
with multiple sheets to stick together to read a table. 

 

I am just off on holiday for a week. Talk you more when I return.
Regards, Peter

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