title: Management consultant (process) performance in local government

authors: Deakins, Eric

subjects: consultants

abstract: Purpose – Broadly conceptualised, a consultant's work can be evaluated by the deliverables produced and by the process used to achieve those deliverables. This paper seeks to report the use of a survey instrument to assess and compare management consultant process performance and client performance (in specifying the contract), enabling meaningful dialogue between the parties. 
Design/methodology/approach – A validated instrument, previously developed by the authors, was employed to survey all local and regional authorities in New Zealand regarding the expectations they have of their management consultants and their perceptions of process performance. Congruence of the performance profiles was assessed with the aid of profile similarity indices. 
Findings – While results for the sector indicate that New Zealand local authorities appear to be generally well satisfied with the levels of service they are receiving from their management consultants, individual authorities are experiencing significant gaps between their expectations and what is being delivered. In addition, misalignments between client expectations and benchmark process performance measures indicate a lack of rigour when specifying contracts. 
Research limitations/implications – The research makes use of subjective measures of excellent consulting practice sourced from industry-respected consultants and authors in the field, rather than attempting to justify their choice from a theoretical basis. Conceptual difficulties with the use of profile similarity indices in alignment research are noted. The generalisability of the benchmark performance standards to consultants operating in other sectors remains to be tested. 
Practical implications – Benchmark consultant performance standards provide the basis for local authorities to insist upon internationally recognized and recommended standards of contract delivery. The use of well-developed process performance measures to assess differences between local authority expectations and perceived consultant performance, and between perceived consultant performance and benchmark expectations, provides the opportunity for local authorities and their consultants to engage in meaningful and objective dialogue. Skilled consultants will benefit from dialogue that should translate into greater respect and understanding of their true worth, and into the setting of contract specifications and pricing that reflect this assessment. 
Originality/value – Previous authors have argued the lack of well-developed performance measures and attendant benchmark performance standards expected of consultants. The present study directly addresses these gaps and focuses on the manner in which management consultants work with public sector clients to produce contract deliverables. Validated benchmark measures are used to detect process performance gaps, providing the opportunity for local authorities and their consultants to engage in meaningful dialogue.

text: Management consultant (process) performance in local government Purpose – Broadly conceptualised, a consultant's work can be evaluated by the deliverables produced and by the process used to achieve those deliverables. This paper seeks to report the use of a survey instrument to assess and compare management consultant process performance and client performance (in specifying the contract), enabling meaningful dialogue between the parties. 
Design/methodology/approach – A validated instrument, previously developed by the authors, was employed to survey all local and regional authorities in New Zealand regarding the expectations they have of their management consultants and their perceptions of process performance. Congruence of the performance profiles was assessed with the aid of profile similarity indices. 
Findings – While results for the sector indicate that New Zealand local authorities appear to be generally well satisfied with the levels of service they are receiving from their management consultants, individual authorities are experiencing significant gaps between their expectations and what is being delivered. In addition, misalignments between client expectations and benchmark process performance measures indicate a lack of rigour when specifying contracts. 
Research limitations/implications – The research makes use of subjective measures of excellent consulting practice sourced from industry-respected consultants and authors in the field, rather than attempting to justify their choice from a theoretical basis. Conceptual difficulties with the use of profile similarity indices in alignment research are noted. The generalisability of the benchmark performance standards to consultants operating in other sectors remains to be tested. 
Practical implications – Benchmark consultant performance standards provide the basis for local authorities to insist upon internationally recognized and recommended standards of contract delivery. The use of well-developed process performance measures to assess differences between local authority expectations and perceived consultant performance, and between perceived consultant performance and benchmark expectations, provides the opportunity for local authorities and their consultants to engage in meaningful and objective dialogue. Skilled consultants will benefit from dialogue that should translate into greater respect and understanding of their true worth, and into the setting of contract specifications and pricing that reflect this assessment. 
Originality/value – Previous authors have argued the lack of well-developed performance measures and attendant benchmark performance standards expected of consultants. The present study directly addresses these gaps and focuses on the manner in which management consultants work with public sector clients to produce contract deliverables. Validated benchmark measures are used to detect process performance gaps, providing the opportunity for local authorities and their consultants to engage in meaningful dialogue.

year: 2006

title: The importance of restoring the Rotorua Lakes

authors: Chadwick, Hon Steve

abstract: In November last year the Rotorua District Council resolved to change our trading name to Rotorua Lakes Council. This was passed at Council and caused a stir; everything I do seems to cause a stir because we did not consult the wider community. In retrospect I still believe it was the best decision to keep at the Council table.

text: The importance of restoring the Rotorua Lakes In November last year the Rotorua District Council resolved to change our trading name to Rotorua Lakes Council. This was passed at Council and caused a stir; everything I do seems to cause a stir because we did not consult the wider community. In retrospect I still believe it was the best decision to keep at the Council table.

year: 2015

title: Microsoft Translator Hub for Māori language

authors: Keegan, Te Taka Adrian Gregory

subjects: computer science

abstract: Recent improvements in Machine Translation (MT) software has opened new possibilities for applications of automatic language translation. But can these opportunities exist for the smaller, minority languages of the world? Training data was collected for the language pair of Māori and English which was used to build an MT system using Microsoft’s Translator Hub software. A comparative analysis was undertaken with this system and Google Translate. Various MT metrics and analysis software was considered before deciding to use the Asiya toolkit to undertake the comparative analysis. Māori language experts were also used to provide a human perspective on the output translations. The overall results showed no significant difference in the translation quality produced by the two systems. Despite some misgivings around the accuracy of the translations these results do show promise for MT usage by minority languages.

text: Microsoft Translator Hub for Māori language Recent improvements in Machine Translation (MT) software has opened new possibilities for applications of automatic language translation. But can these opportunities exist for the smaller, minority languages of the world? Training data was collected for the language pair of Māori and English which was used to build an MT system using Microsoft’s Translator Hub software. A comparative analysis was undertaken with this system and Google Translate. Various MT metrics and analysis software was considered before deciding to use the Asiya toolkit to undertake the comparative analysis. Māori language experts were also used to provide a human perspective on the output translations. The overall results showed no significant difference in the translation quality produced by the two systems. Despite some misgivings around the accuracy of the translations these results do show promise for MT usage by minority languages.

year: 2018