Process Improvement in Louisville Keeps People First
This was my first time visiting Louisville, but I felt right at home.
My name is Ines Mato, and I come from Uruguay, a very different place than Louisville. However, when I stepped into Louisville’s Office of Performance Improvement and Innovation (OPI), I felt I identified with the idea that municipal government can be improved through the use of data and processes, a concept I embrace every day as a Strategic Planning & Performance Analyst at the City of Miami.
Cheriene (Strategic Planning & Performance Manager), Mike (Chief Innovation Officer), and I arrived Monday afternoon at our first #MiaStatTrip stop and immediately set off to meet with our OPI hosts. How could I not feel at home at their offices when “visual boards” were posted everywhere, meetings were run so efficiently, and high-school / college interns were using GIS to map future optical fiber installations throughout the City? It was an impressive work environment to walk into.
I’m glad we made Louisville one of our “must visit” cities, because we left with tons of ideas on performance, innovation and process improvement.
Meet OPI
OPI is split into 2 distinct business areas, performance and innovation, that work collaboratively. On the performance side, Daro Mott, Chief of Performance Improvement, runs a team of eight. Daro is a trusted adviser to the Mayor and a well-respected expert on all things Six Sigma, LEAN, and government performance strategy. It’s obvious he is always looking to learn new things, a very helpful quality as he guides departments to dig deep into their processes.
On the innovation side, Grace Simrall, Chief of Civic Innovation and Technology, oversees an innovation team of five. She also oversees all information technology services. Grace and her innovation team are a force to be reckoned with — balanced by strong technical talent and a drive to achieve social good. We’ll talk more about them in a future post.
Our three-day visit with OPI included informal sessions with performance and innovation teams, an Animal Services “LouisStat” meeting, senior leadership meetings, and even face time with Mayor Greg Fischer. Of course, there is never enough time to discuss fascinating topics like data analysis and LouisStat management in depth — well, never enough time for nerdy people like us — but here are some key lessons we learned from Louisville:
Invest in the skills and culture of your workforce
In Louisville, performance management and innovation are not things that only happen in OPI’s offices. They are habits and practices that are ingrained in everyone’s job throughout Louisville government. Luckily, we had the honor to hear this firsthand from Mayor Fischer, who despite his busy schedule made room to talk to us.
Staff will tell you that the Mayor’s vision has been immensely important to OPI’s successes. After meeting with him, it’s obvious why: his views on performance, innovation, and organizational leadership are clear and inspirational.
“Respect the heads and the hearts of your employees.” — Mayor Greg Fischer
He talked about respecting the “heads and the hearts” of employees, building skills, and improving people’s capacity to do more good. Every Louisville employee is challenged to perform their daily work, support continuous improvement, and create innovation. To support this, he promotes a “weakness orientation,” where employees are celebrated for bringing problems to the table.
The Mayor also referred to the “20–60–20 Rule”, where 20% of the people will be excited about performance and innovation, 20% will negatively see passing trends, and the remaining 60% will be actively looking for direction and leadership. He says focusing on empowering this 60% can go a long way toward achieving transformative change in cities.
Daro also knows people should be your primary focus. “If you want to engage people,” he says, “training is your change management strategy. Inspire your employees and allow them to be creative.” Don’t stop there. He encourages relentless follow-up. What is expected of people after they are trained? Do you have a plan to reinforce good behavior (and don’t forget the managers and leaders that helped their employees get there)?
Finally, don’t be afraid to be bold. Daro will remind you that “fortune favors the brave.”
Focus less on the tech, more on “standard work”
Standard processes and assessments are common currency in Louisville. It’s how the organization transacts. For example, each time Daro considers working on a process improvement project, he has a specific assessment to determine if the project is viable. These tools help manage intake and better understand when to say “no.”
The assessments keep the following in mind:
- People (What resources and skills are available?)
- Processes (Does the department understand the process, What’s the current state?)
- Technology (What is being used today? What tech do we own that can help?)
- Culture/Mindset (Are we ready for a change?).
Louisville has really focused on consistent ways of getting things done. Whether it’s a simple status meeting or a process focused on improving capital project management, employees use common, familiar techniques and templates in their daily work. A shared language makes sure everyone is on the same page and that no time goes to waste.
“Eliminate waste,” reminds Daro. “Waste is disrespectful.”
The team showed that you don’t need the latest technology to make a big impact. OPI uses lots of “visual boards” (a combo of post-its, white boards, and posters on walls) to communicate goals, statuses, issues, and successes. They often create these even before mapping processes to make sure projects start off well organized. Even when measuring things mid-project, the team doesn’t let lack of technology stop them. No database or software to measure progress? No problem. Because sometimes, a hand-written tally sheet over a one week period is enough to capture the story.
A great example of visual board management came while the process team held a meeting to improve their own internal way of doing things. Although the meeting took preparation, the process of identifying weaknesses and discussing outcomes as a team was easy thanks to the structured process used. To start, team members each described one thing they could change now. They placed these ideas on a matrix according to level of impact and effort.
The things that fell under quadrant “high impact” and “low effort” got prioritized as potential areas for improvement. This process blew my mind because it not only gave everyone a chance to speak up about their work but it also identified solutions quickly.
Don’t Underestimate the Value of Pre-Work
OPI is responsible for managing Louisville’s LouisStat Program. The program, established in 2011, helps departments manage performance with data. Louisville has one of the most respected “Stat” programs in the nation. The performance analysts in OPI take this reputation seriously, preparing weeks in advance to help departments publicly present their data to leadership.
Key lesson: Don’t cut corners on the “pre-work.” Meetings will run a lot smoother and you will earn a lot more confidence if you’ve properly prepared.
Focus on Process Simplicity First
We couldn’t avoid asking LEAN/Six Sigma guru, Daro Mott how we do it if he were starting all over again. “Start with process simplicity.” He advised that LEAN was particularly good at this. It’s also fast. Six Sigma can provide more accuracy, but it can also be more time-consuming. You might risk departments losing focus and disengaging.
Basically, just help people make sense of how work gets done. Process maps are great for this.
He also had a few other quick suggestions:
- The Lean 5S/6S method is often a quick way to make things less stressful for customers and employees.
- Embed measurement and feedback loops into your processes.
- Scoping process improvement projects correctly is critical. Sometimes, you can get quick wins with “Just Do It” projects (things that can be solved in windows as small as 2 hours.) Others will require longer term engagements.
Again, Louisville has trained many of its employees on lean six-sigma and project management techniques. Without a doubt, this training, combined with standardization and simple vision boards has helped the city move in the right direction. We can’t wait to see how some of these tools can be applied in Miami.
I could go on…
Again, Louisville has trained many of its employees on lean six-sigma and project management techniques. Without a doubt, this training, combined with standardization and simple visual/vision boards has helped the city move in the right direction. We experienced this in meeting after meeting where anyone from the junior analyst to the Mayor spoke fluently about said techniques and the pre-work it took to get there. Yes, the methods were handy, but the discipline around the tools is the story. Louisville was first of several lessons where we learned, above the tools used and the principles followed, what sets this program apart are its people.
I could go on and on talking about Louisville, but I’m going to stop here and let you digest the information. This is it for now, but expect more from us. We’ll have more on Louisville and the three other cities we visited!
