German term (edited): Giesskannenprinzip

I think I'd put the English term in quotation marks.

In Germany and elsewhere, funding still follows largely the so-called “Giesskannenprinzip” which can be translated as the “watering can principle”. This derogatory expression stands for the behavior of funding agencies to spill the subsidies
indiscriminately among institutions, professors and students like a gardener who continues to water spots where no single plant ever grew.4

http://www.uni-konstanz.de/FuF/Verwiss/GSchneider/downloads/...


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Note added at 8 mins (2006-09-01 15:50:53 GMT)
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The investments in the development of your employees can be targeted much better with the Traffic-Light-Tool.com ™. The resulting training projects lead to a much higher performance and success than the 'watering can principle'. And last but not least, the employees will be more motivated because they are individually supported.
http://www.ameinfo.com/91271.html

This is strictly for the USA (mmmm, peanut butter).

Here, we speak of the "peanut butter approach" where we spread our resources over far too many projects. This leads to inadequate funding for virtually everything.

Common expression for general coverage.

and picking up on the peanut-butter approach a solution applicable outside the US as well:

someting on the line with "spreading thin"

... all the time To pr. vent spreading our resources too thin and to still accomplish our goals we ... time To prevent spreading our resources too thin and to still accomplish ...

and for 'Aussteuerung' I would use 'targeting' 'aligning'


You could start your sentence like this:

Everyone knows it is not economical to spread (your) resources too thin ...

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Note added at 16 hrs (2006-09-02 08:07:04 GMT)
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our instead or your resources