Listened today to the @yourewrongabout episode on the Challenger disaster

They discuss the post-Apollo outsourcing of much of NASA's engineering work to private contractors, leading a lot of NASA geeks doing more project management than science https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-challenger-disaster/id1380008439?i=1000465289942

It got me thinking about the World Bank, where there is still a disconnect between the academic training/qualification of some professional staff and what many end up doing: managing lending projects *is hard* - but it's not always clear you need a PhD in X to do it

During my time there I talked to many people who were doing far less technical work than they would have wanted to, but there was always institutional pressure to work on lending projects and time pressure meant it was easier to outsource the in-depth work to a consultant

The end result is that in some parts of the institution, some of the most interesting work is being done by consultants. Obv it is better if staff are experts in the same field as their project, but one wonders if the gradual outsourcing of work has deleterious effects

Curious to hear other WBer's thoughts