Aadarsh-Gram

This is about an idea to develop every village in India into a Model Village where in each inhabitant in the village would have higher level of a metric which I call Satisfaction Index (SI). It is a common concept in the field of management that without measurement we can not manage. Hence, it becomes crucial to define SI at the outset and generate an exhaustive list of all its determinants as well. It would be wonderful if we a get a clarity of the functional relationship between the determinants and the SI but carrying a higher degree of subjectivity within itself it would be difficult to quantify SI in terms of its determinants but nevertheless we would put our grey cells to test to achieve this.

So, what we are basically trying to do is to determine a functional relationship as shown below: 

SI = f (d1, d2, d3...dn) ;

Now, if we know all the d's and the way they impact SI, we can control SI (this reminds me of a Design of Experiment during my college days where I tried to determine input-output relationship for a welding operation. Wish, individual satisfaction levels had such an objectivity). So, what could be the factors affecting SI? the top-of-the-mind answer to this would be fulfillment of 'Needs' (not Wants). Here it would be pertinent to understand that the pyramid of Satisfaction is made up of basic life requirements at the base and then incremental aspirations as and when the layer underneath achieves the required satisfaction level. Basically, I am referring to Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid.

Here we see that there are a lot of factors which are influencing the Satisfaction Level (SI) of individuals. It would defeat the concept of 'satisficing' (satisfy + suffice) given by Herbert Simon if we go for trying to fulfill each of the needs at one go. Simply, the resources at our disposal do not allow us to take that approach.  Hence, it would be advisable to prioritize the factors/determinants to be addressed. So, if one has to determine the weight-age of the determinants constituting 'SI' he/she would be assigning higher values for the determinants lying on the lower tiers. To put it in other words the determinants fulfilling Physiological Needs have to be addressed before the Safety and Security Needs and so on.

After gaining this clarity it now remains to start working on each of the determinants mentioned in the bottom-most tier. They are Air (d1), Food (d2), Water (d3), Shelter (d4), Clothing (d5), Sleep (d6). The objective at hand is to increase the degree of fulfillment of all these 6 needs to a reasonable level. So what is this reasonable level? A few more queries which come up are:

1. How to measure the degree of fulfillment of each of these determinants?

2. Do we have a  established metric system or we need to devise one?

3. What is the level then, to which we want to raise the fulfillment levels of all these ?

4. Are there any universally accepted fulfillment levels?

I have made an attempt to answer the Query No 1. It is as shown in the matrix below.

(I have kept the determinant of 'sleep' outside its purview as by raising the level of fulfillment of the rest of the five would automatically lead to take care of one's sleep.)

 to be continued...