Building the Lean community in government
Delivering products and services that are simple for users is the goal in government. But we often have excess, behind-the-scenes processes that make services clunky and difficult for users.
This is where Lean comes in. Lean is an approach that improves speed, flow, and efficiency by improving processes. This means stopping parts of the process that aren’t necessary for the end user.
The core idea of Lean is to maximize government’s value for the people while minimizing unnecessary processes.
Gathering the Lean community
On September 25, 2018 we hosted our first Lean meetup to kick off the plan to create a Lean office in the Ontario Public Service. This was our first opportunity to identify Lean experts across government, hear from them directly about what an office of Lean should look like and how they could be involved.
Our goals were to get a sense from Lean practitioners: 1) what the purpose of a Lean office could be and 2) what we should look out for as we get this office started up. We also got a sense of who is certified in Lean and design thinking methodologies to begin co-creating a set of guiding principles for when and how to use Lean methods to deliver more efficient, effective government services.
What we learned from our first meetup
Here’s a summary of people’s responses when we asked what they thought the purpose of the Lean office should be:
- Leadership to champion the Lean culture in government and remove organizational blockers
- Centre of excellence to deliver advice, coaching and support for ministries
- Learning and development to help people build Lean skills and provide standardized certification
- Performance measurement to analyze data to identify opportunities and give benchmarks for setting project performance indicators
- Community of practice to bring together practitioners and collaborate
- Lean delivery team to deploy practitioners to consult, coach and mentor ministry Lean teams
These takeaways were helpful for the new Lean Delivery and Continuous Improvement Office while we began to engage with partners across government, find viable projects and continue building Lean skills. Within the first few weeks, the new Lean office has trained an additional 100 OPS staff and has held over 70 engagements.
Reconvening the Lean community
Last week we gathered the Lean community again. This time to kick off the first projects of the Lean and Continuous Improvement office, and to formally announce the office’s opening.
We had a packed room of nearly 300 people, in person and online. Tickets sold out quickly, an indication of how much support and enthusiasm there is for Lean. People in the room and online were eager to network with other Lean practitioners to share best practices and learn from one another. The event was kicked off by the Minister of Government and Consumer Services, Bill Walker, who himself is Lean certified.
Building teams to deliver Lean projects
Lean works best when many people are engaged. We announced seven projects, and Lean practitioners are enthusiastic to collaborate with members of the Lean community across government.
The following programs are engaging with the Lean and Continuous Improvement Office to work together on Lean projects:
- Service Ontario Call Centre
- Dementia Capacity Planning
- Accessible Parking Permit Processing
- Death Certificate Processing
In addition, Lean practitioners will have the opportunity to sign up to help develop three key products:
- OPS Lean Guild
- OPS Lean Standard
- OPS Lean Targets and Measure
Reducing waste to improve delivery time and value for services
These projects are a great opportunity for experienced practitioners and for people newer to Lean to get their feet wet with Lean in government. We’re pleased that people are eager to collaborate on Lean projects to get better value for taxpayer dollars with less wasted time and money. So there will be fewer burdens to frustrate and weigh down our businesses, families and government workforce.
I know that Lean thinking changes the way you see an organization. I’m looking forward to outcomes that make services simpler, faster and better for people and businesses in Ontario.
Get in touch
We’ll be hosting another event in the Spring, I’m looking forward to sharing the outcomes of these projects in the next few months.
If you’re interested in the Lean Guild please reach out to hedia.balkhi@ontario.ca. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.
