Yes, you are right, this is just one criteria out of 13 but it still boggles my mind that this criteria is even present in the list. Can you imagine a for profit corporation evaluating project based on such a criteria?
Even if I were to accept your point that it's important to retain existing people for the knowledge they have, it still doesn't explain why your project would get 2 points if you increase the workforce by more than 10%.
Why yes, I can imagine that. Companies generally don't much like firing people. They quite reasonably prefer making better use of the people they've got.
Now, I doubt that any commercial enterprise would use the exact same criterion as (if we take this one out-of-context slide at face value) NASA is using here. So what we have is some evidence that one thing NASA tries to do is to provide jobs. Which is not remotely the same thing as "NASA is a jobs program", which is the idiotic claim being made by the originally cited blog entry.
Why should NASA try to provide jobs? They are funded by taxpayer money (i.e. our money) and we have given them money to do research not to provide jobs.
Even if I were to believe that providing jobs is a worthy goal , there are cheaper ways for government to provide jobs than for NASA to create these jobs out of thin air.
And could you care to explain why you take offense about the 'out of context slide'? What's the missing context which will justify this slide's contents?
Why should NASA try to provide jobs? They are funded by taxpayer money (i.e. our money) and we have given them money to do research not to provide jobs.
They try to provide jobs because they are funded by taxpayer money. Their primary stakeholder is the American public; it is their job to benefit their stakeholders. Employment is a benefit, in the eyes of the great majority of people.
Secondly, this is hardly "out of thin air." Assessing the manpower needs of a project proposal and selecting for the ones that rank higher on the scale is very different than the government going "Break some rocks, collect a paycheck lol."
They try to provide jobs because they are funded by taxpayer money. Their primary stakeholder is the American public; it is their job to benefit their stakeholders
Let me get this straight. You want government to take money from people (by taxing them), creating organizations like NASA and give money to people (by providing jobs). My questions to you is, why go through all the trouble? Why not reduce taxes and let people keep their money thereby eliminating waste.
I didn't comment on whether or not I approved of the reasoning, I just stated that I wouldn't be surprised if that is part of the reasoning. Whether I want it to be that way or not is immaterial.
As others have said: they should (or, rather, it's perfectly reasonable if they do) try to provide jobs because they are funded by taxpayer money. As someone who pays taxes, I am very happy for some of that money to be used to provide jobs. (Of course, jobs doing something; if you have evidence that NASA is in fact paying people to do nothing, or to do useless things, then please feel free to provide it.)
I didn't take offence about anything. I mentioned that the slide was taken out of context because, er, it was, and that might be relevant -- e.g., because there is a considerable difference between "we decide whether a project is worth while by looking at whether it will provide jobs" and "we decide whether a project is worth while by looking at a dozen things, one of which is whether it will provide jobs".
For instance: Suppose one of the other slides says that a criterion they use is some measure of efficiency: useful stuff achieved per unit money or time spent. Then what seems to me to be the only reason for objecting to "more jobs => better" largely goes away. (Let's have an even more specific, albeit rather artificial, example: suppose two of their metrics are "jobs provided" and "likely stuff achieved per job provided", and suppose the way they combine them is to multiply together. Then that is exactly equivalent to the single metric "likely stuff achieved", which I hope you would not object to.)
The companies I've worked for have generally done considerably more hiring than firing, and the people involved have seemed to enjoy the hiring much more. Perhaps I've just been lucky.
Can you imagine a for profit corporation evaluating project based on such a criteria? Yes. Did it for years. It's either that or fire the people who work for you.
it still doesn't explain why your project would get 2 points if you increase the workforce by more than 10% If you create a stable environment by not treating your workforce like rented mules you will not have significant turnover. The only way to bring in new capabilities is by increasing the head count.
Even if I were to accept your point that it's important to retain existing people for the knowledge they have, it still doesn't explain why your project would get 2 points if you increase the workforce by more than 10%.