124less than 1% of traditional organizations have a BMI under 40, and that BMI strongly correlates with organization size such that 5000 or more employees tends to result in BMIs at around 75. BMIs for the large U.S. public universities seem to fall in the range of 75 or higher, particularly when considering the most hierarchical divisions, which suggests that the BMI could be a tool for measuring and reducing university bureaucracy.

4.2

Calculate the Time Burden for Stakeholders

Most university faculty and staff face significant paperwork burdens, often led by good intentions. One helpful tip here comes from the U.S. federal government’s 1980 Paperwork Reduction Act, designed to reduce the paperwork burden on private business and citizens, by requiring that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) preapprove any information-collection burden on the general public such as a paper form, website, survey, or electronic submission. The OMB then considers the amount of time (in minutes and hours) it takes to submit this paperwork. For example, the U.S. Government’s student aid website (Federal Student Aid, 2021: https://studentaid.gov/help/collecting-info) notes the average time burden for the over 100 questions Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is an “average 50 to 55 min for applicants who use FAFSA on the Web to complete and submit the application, an average of 40 to 45 min for an applicant who has previously used FAFSA on the Web and completes a renewal FAFSA, and an average of 5–10 min to make FAFSA corrections.” This logic could be applied to other processes such that