Consulting Opportunity 11.1 Your Cage or Mine?

"Why can't they get this right? It's driving me to distraction. The zoo in Colombia is writing to me about a tiger that has been on loan from our place for over two years. They should be writing to Tulsa," trumpets Ella Fant, waving a letter in the air. Ella is general curator in charge of the animal breeding program at the nonprofit Gotham Zoo.

She is talking with members of the zoo's five-person committee about the proposals before them. The committee meets every month to decide which animals to loan to other zoos and which animals to get on loan for breeding. The committee is composed of Ella Fant, the general curator; Ty Garr, the zoo's director; two zoo employees, Annie Malle and Mona Key; and a layperson, Rex Lyon, who is in business in the community.Ty paces in front of the group and continues the meeting, saying, "We have the possibility of loaning out two of our golden tamarins, and we have the opportunity to play matchmaker for two lesser pandas. Because three of you are new to the committee, I'll briefly discuss your responsibilities. As you know, Ella and I would pounce on any chance to lure animals in for the breeding program. Your duties are to assess the zoo's financial resources and to look at our zoo's immediate demands. You also must consider the season and our shipping capability, as well as that of the zoos we're considering. The other zoos charge us nothing for the loan of their animals for the breeding program. We pay the shipping for any animal being loaned to us and then maintain them, and that gets expensive."

"There is a special database on the Web that we subscribe to that includes selected species with 164 other zoos," says Ella as she picks up the story from Ty. "I have the password for the database stored on my computer. I can access the records of all captive animals in the system, including those from the two zoos we are negotiating with right now."

As the committee members work, they begin asking questions. "I need to read some information, get some meat to sink my teeth into, before I'm ready to decide whether the loan of the lesser pandas is a good idea. Where are the data on the animals we're considering?" growls Rex.

Annie replies, "We have to go to Ella's office to access the database. Mostly, the other employees who need to know just use her computer."

Mona gets into the swing of the discussion and says, "Some information on the current state of the budget would be divine too. I'll go bananas with new expenditures until we at least have a summary of what we're spending. I bet it's a bunch."

Ty answers, "We don't mean to monkey around, but frankly we feel trapped. Costs of reproducing all the financial data seem high to us. We'd rather put our money into reproducing rare and endangered species! Paperwork multiplies on its own."

The group laughs nervously together, but there is an air of expectancy in the room. The consensus is that the committee members need more internal information about the zoo's financial status and the prospective loan animals.

Ella, aware that the group cannot be tamed in the way the previous one was, says, "The old committee preferred to get their information informally, through chatting with us. Let's spend this first meeting discovering what kinds of information you think you need to get working as a committee. Financial data are stored on a laptop that our financial director uses. It's his baby, of course."

Annie replies, "We have to go to Ella's office to access the database. Mostly, the other employees who need to know just use her computer."

Mona gets into the swing of the discussion and says, "Some information on the current state of the budget would be divine too. I'll go bananas with new expenditures until we at least have a summary of what we're spending. I bet it's a bunch."

Ty answers, "We don't mean to monkey around, but frankly we feel trapped. Costs of reproducing all the financial data seem high to us. We'd rather put our money into reproducing rare and endangered species! Paperwork multiplies on its own."

The group laughs nervously together, but there is an air of expectancy in the room. The consensus is that the committee members need more internal information about the zoo's financial status and the prospective loan animals.

Ella, aware that the group cannot be tamed in the way the previous one was, says, "The old committee preferred to get their information informally, through chatting with us. Let's spend this first meeting discovering what kinds of information you think you need to work as a committee. Financial data are stored on a laptop that our financial director uses. It's his baby, of course."

What are some of the problems related to output that the committee is experiencing? What suggestions you have for improving output to the committee? How can the budget constraints of the zoo be met while still allowing the committee to receive the output