Transforming your Business Processes
This is the title of an exciting and innovative national conference run by the West Midlands Regional Improvement & Efficiency Partnership on Business Process Improvement (BPI) and the new BPI Framework Agreement. This event was held on Tuesday 8th April 2008 at The National Motorcycle Museum, nr Solihull, Birmingham.
Atkins were attendance as well as running a workshop (outlined below).
Murder in the Boardroom: “Are you taking the P – seriously?”
In this highly interactive session, we investigated a murder. Our "whodunit" asked whether the "P" of the PDSA (Plan, Do, Study, Act) Cycle has been bumped off, and if so, by whom, and why? Murder? Or just a case of serious neglect?
We bring together observations at work with detailed research into organisational behaviour related to systems, to identify where "P" has gone, and some practical steps to getting it back!
The PDSA Cycle is the underlying principle of the Atkins Improvement Methodology (AIM) – which provides a structured approach to applying lean systems thinking techniques to improve service delivery.
Our recent findings indicate that senior managers are now buying into "Lean" and "Process Improvement" - but in a process-by-process way. In other words, Do-Study-Act or Study-Act-Do - or even worse Do-Do-Do-Do-we-know-we-should-study-but-we-are-too-busy-fighting-fires-Do! We plan to spend the hour looking at why this phenomenon occurs, sharing what we have been doing to try to remedy it, and working together on ideas that you might want to look at in your own organisation for bringing "P" back to life.
This includes developing "a shared picture" that plays a vital role in ensuring that the complete System of Profound Knowledge is used - including "Plan" - in a way that engages people and aligns processes with a compelling purpose and vision for success.
Case Study: London Borough of Bromley
A lean thinking initiative was introduced within the planning department with the aim of improving the throughput of applications without introducing more staff into the team.
With our support, the department’s own teams:
- applied a structured lean methodology to their existing processes and working practices
- determined the causes for their current performance levels
- developed new improved methods
The subsequent introduction of a Telephone Enquiry Team enabled the provision of quality information to customers, whilst relieving the planners of interruptions. As a result of the changes, benefits have included:
- improved team morale – they were recognised in the Final Review as a “dynamic and responsive team who are better placed to continuously meet customer and Government requirements”
- a 51% improvement in the % of major planning applications dealt with in the target time
- a 6% improvement in the % of major planning applications dealt with in the target time
