Governing Wisely
Creating More Capability With Less Funding
Thomas Cluley
Chief Operations Partner
One of the major challenges our administration faces is that under current conditions, the demand for services exceeds the available resources. With two major wars, an economic recovery, a health care crisis, the driving need for energy independence, and all of the other issues the administration faces, available funding comes up severely short. The current systems and structures cannot produce the desired outcomes with the available resources. They are just too inefficient.
This condition mirrors the challenge that industry has faced for decades. The difference is that industry never had the additional funds to throw at the problem. In order to survive and thrive, organizations had to change their systems and structures and drive waste out of their processes. In the face of expanding deficits and debt, the government can no longer afford to throw money and resources at their problems, so like industry they are challenged with how to make their systems and structures more efficient.
The same methodologies of strategic planning, robust strategy alignment and deployment, and rapid waste elimination that saved successful companies in the private sector over the past three decades need to be employed in the public sector if the administration hopes to overcome the challenges it faces. In order to govern wisely and create more capability with less, the government needs to become a high performance organization.
A high performance organization is one that has a clearly defined mission, creates a vision for the future and then drives toward that vision. This is accomplished by identifying the barriers to achieving the vision, creating strategies to overcome those barriers, and aligning the various resources of the organization. This must be done in a way that focuses the organization on executing those strategies. In doing so the organization typically employs Lean and Six Sigma tools and methods to eliminate waste, and drive out variation so that their newly designed systems and processes are efficient and produce reliable outcomes.
The government, like most organizations, develops strategic plans, but sees them as additive to their daily operations. They are high level documents that provide overall guidance and direction, but rarely become integrated into the daily activities of the various agencies, divisions, departments, or units.
We think of organizations and what they do in terms of being systems that are there to take various inputs and process those inputs into meaningful products, services, or outcomes that are desired of an internal or external customer. This is no different in government. Each agency has a mission to produce a value added service or outcome. So the place to start is at the agency level.
In order to create more mission capability in the face of limited funding, government agencies need to develop effective strategies that modify system's inputs, processes, and outputs in some manner as to deliver desired future state results, and do so with a focus on improved quality, cost, and delivery.
The first phase in this process involves discovery. In this phase each element of the organization defines their role in the mission. They identify the barriers they face currently and those they fear are coming at them in the future. They identify both internal and external factors of impact. Then they identify what Jim Collins, in his book, "Good to Great" represents their "Hedge Hog". This is what they have a passion for, what they feel they can be the best in the world at, and what they get paid to do.
The senior leadership of the organization identifies, what in military terms represents the "commander's intent". This is the high level objective of the senior leadership of the organization. The mission defined by each of the elements of the organization are compared to that of the senior leadership in order to come to an understanding as to whether there is a common mission and a common set of barriers.
Typically, due to the functional 'stove pipe' focus inherent in most organizations, while they believe they are all on the same page, they often have different understanding regarding the mission, and in an effort to optimize their piece, they sub-optimize the whole.
The next step is to get the leadership team into one room to establish a common mission, identify a common vision for the future, agree on common barriers the organization faces and establish enterprise wide strategies to overcome those barriers. This becomes the over arching strategy of the organization. At this juncture it is necessary to identify Key Performance Metrics that measure the level of improvement at the "enterprise level".
This is the point at which most organizations publish a strategic plan, send copies out to everyone, and then get back to what they were doing before they were interrupted and forced to work together. In other words, this is where they really need help.
In order to effectively deploy an organization's strategy, each of the elements of the organization must identify their resource constraints and then set Annual Improvement Priorities (AIPs). The AIPs must align with the overall objectives of the organization. This is done through a facilitated 'catch ball' process.
From there plans are developed, complete with milestones and targets, and a governance system is put in place to monitor progress, create accountability, provide support, and initiate corrective action to keep things moving forward. Along the way the organization is taught basic Lean Six Sigma principles and how to overcome the inherent resistance to change that occurs whenever someone tries to change the way things are done.
MainStream GS' methodology for helping clients create high performance is a proven structured approach that provides experienced senior management consultants who guide the organization through their early learning. We help avoid some of the pitfalls that organizations experience in developing sound strategies.
We use our Strategy Alignment and Deployment Model to develop sound systems and structures for successfully deploying the organization's strategies. In addition, we provide expertise in the use of Lean Six Sigma tools and methods that not only facilitate improvement, but create the organic capability within the client organization to become self sufficient.
For more detail on how our methodology works, we encourage you to visit our website and read our white paper entitled 'Raising the Bar: A Disciplined Approach to Creating High Performance Organizations.' For more information about MainStream GS, LLC or to discuss this article further please email contact@mainstreamllc.com or call 877.785.4888.