There are several states that are studying the use of Lean one of these is Georgia. This article suggests how this major streamlining reform of Georgia’s 152 boards, commissions, offices and departments may be approached.

Overview
We will start by getting the legislature and executive branches of the state government to commit to the Lean reforms. An extensive Lean training program will then be started. Next a high level lean team will be appointed to manage and steer the reforms. This is followed by the breakdown of the 152 organizations into functions. A function is identified by the products and services it produces. The personnel working within each function are organized into Functional Lean teams to study the process flows used to produce their product or service and determine the best method. The high level Lean Team will then logically group the 152 organizations into 5 to 10 high level Group organizations.

While all this is going on a separate Customer Relations Management (CRM) team is established to build a State Telephone 311 Portal. The state IT department will develop a Frequently Asked Question Database for each of the new High level Group organizations. This is done to aid the newly trained call takers in answering questions and providing services to the public. The CRM is not intended to supplant the States website services. Once the CRM is up and running further reforms will follow with each high level group organization being managed by a Steering Team. The new group Steering Teams will manage the activities of the new Functional Teams formed from the Functional Lean Teams.

Managing the Hype
Government Personnel as well as the public needs to be informed about the reorganization and consolidation changes that will be taking place. Vocal objections made to the public need to be responded to. Termination rules need to be in place for personnel that refuse to follow directives needed in making the reforms. Manage hype by emphasizing the positive aspects of the reform: “streamlining agencies for improved public services”, “employees will take an active role in improvements and in the management of government”; down play savings.

Establishing a culture of employee innovation through teams is one of the best ways to get an efficient operation with continuous improvement. Because the employee is close to the day to day operation he can detect problems sooner and has the opportunity to come up with an innovative solution before the problem is even known to management. This is an advantage over most bureaucratic organizations where it’s difficult to get employee innovation for three reasons. First employees are generally not asked to be innovative and are intimidated by the culture of the organization. Second if they do have a good idea it is generally ignored due to the competitive nature found at the work place. And the third reason is little or no responsibility is delegated to the employee for making improvements to their work processes. See my article 116.

Initiating the Lean Training
The first steps are to obtain agreement with HRM to provide Lean training personnel who will be Lean trainers for the high level Lean Teams and for others to be trained to fill the role of Facilitators for the Functional Lean Teams. Training of the Facilitators will include monitoring the organization and the election of a team leader for the Functional Lean Teams and training them in how to do Process Flow Charts (PFC). Selected Budgeting personnel will also be required to attend the training sessions in how to do the PFCs. Budgeting personnel will be required to analyze the PFCs determining required man-hour and other associated costs such as mileage for each process of the function.

Functional Breakdown
A Function is the name of a part of an organization that uses a unique set of processes to achieve a product or service that satisfies a specific public need. Processes are the steps required to achieve the desired product or service and are studied by the Functional Lean Team using a Process Flow Chart (PFC) to determine the best way to perform the function.

Because functions can precisely describe a task, breaking down the budget into functions simplifies the budgeting process. This allows functions to be easily excluded or included in the budget as a funded entity. To begin the process I would request all organizations to make a preliminary break down of their current budget into functions. This is done to prepare the way for identifying and organizing a function’s Lean Team.

There is also a benefit when consolidating government organizations. Functions identified as budgeted entities can easily be removed from one department and placed in another by moving the budget and the personnel performing the function.

After each of the functional Lean teams has been organized, elected its leader and is meeting once a week, monitored by a facilitator it will begin work on finding the best way to do their function. I have found that the most effective way for the Lean Team to make a PFC is to tape white butcher paper or brown wrapping paper around the conference room walls. After each Lean Team meeting the PFC can be easily rolled and put up at the next meeting. In order to maintain flexibility each process is written on 8 1/2x11in. paper and taped to the wall allowing for changes to be easily made. I would make two PFCs the first one is of the existing PFC and the second right under it the new improved method PFC. When the PFCs are completed and other improvements are known the budget analyst will review the PFCs to determine the cost savings from the new method. To do this the budget analyst will determine all associated costs for each process and enter the results into a spreadsheet. The total expenditures for the function become what I call the Funding Formula for the function. The budget for the function simply becomes the number of times that the function is expected to be performed in the budgeted year. Staffing is done from the calculated man-hours. The reason this can be easily estimated is that you cannot staff with less than a full person.

Role of the Budget Analyst
The Process Flow Charts done by the Lean teams provide a record of the costs associated with each Function. If a Function or one of its processes were to be removed all of its budget will also be removed. When the new and best method has been documented in the Process Flow Chart it is presented to the Group management. This is an important step which signifies Group management’s support and recognition of the Team’s accomplishments. Upon approval of the new method the Process Flow Chart is given over to the budget analyst to cost out the savings of the new method and to identify the proper staffing for the function. The budget analyst then documents the new method and its costs in a spread sheet which will provide input to the next budget. See my article 137.

The organization is now budgeted at the functional level. This I call bottoms up budgeting and when all the functions are totaled with the Steering Management costs you get the group level budget. This is the opposite of the old top down budget method for departments and agencies. See my article 113.

Consolidating the Many into the Manageable Few
To begin the reform a top level Lean study is initiated for the purpose of combining agency functions through similarity of their process flows developed by the Functional Lean Teams. The functions are grouped under new combined Group management names. This will reduce the number of boards and commissions significantly to about 5 or 10. We can now initiate the balancing of the work loads for each of these grouped sets of functions. What we are doing is planning the best solution or way of doing this set of functions for a period of time usually a week. Work load planning is a common Industrial Engineering technique found in industry.

How Work Load Planning works
All of the new Group management’s functions are grouped according to similarity of the processes done in each function. Note that each function takes a different length of time to complete. In planning the work load the back log in each group of functions is balanced out for the day or the week to keep the work load leveled. Employees are cross trained to do the processes in several of the group’s functions.

We know the employee time required to do each function by using the Lean flow process study for the function. The staffing base for each new agency is established by adding the hours required for each function and multiplying by the number of expected occurrences of the function for the year (from data obtained in past years). When all of the totaled hours are added the result is multiplied by 1.25 to allow for normal working conditions rated at 75% not 100%. The Staffing Base or the total number of employees doing the work in the Group is found by dividing the total hours rated at 75% by the number of hours normally worked in a year. This staffing base plus expenses incurred in the year is documented on a spread sheet for each of the agency’s functions. This becomes the budget for the function. The Total of all the function’s budgets plus the Group’s management costs equals the Group’s budget. The budgeting of functions places the budgeting process more under legislative control.

Building the CRM
The suggested reform of a State Centralized Portal using a 311 telephone number eliminates a significant amount of red tape. The 24 hour State Services Call Center can provide almost instant service to the public not just information. This portal eliminates the need for the public to search for a specific government organization and opens the way for the complete reorganization of the states services system. No longer requiring public interface, boards and commissions can be consolidated into a much more responsive and efficient organizations resulting in the elimination of many management and public interface employee positions. See my articles 101, 102 and 154.

Finalizing the Organizational Reform
First the functional Lean Team becomes the Functional Management Team for each of the Group’s functions. Second many of the mid management levels between the Functional management and Group Management become redundant. Group Management now becomes a Group Steering Management Team which has the role of guiding and steering the organization while the Functional Management Team deals with the day to day operation of the functions. Steering Management is responsible for “telling” Functional Management “what to do” but not “how to do it”. This is a loose-tight organization with Steering firmly in control of the budget leaving Functional Management free to determine how best to do the job. Those in industry will recognize this as straight from the book “In Search of Excellence- Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies” by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr., Harper and Row, New York, 1982.

This reform brings a positive cultural change to the organization. Employees become members of Teams and are motivated by empowering them to improve their jobs through innovation. By bringing innovation and continuous improvement to the government’s processes the state will have savings through increased efficiency in the future. The reform amounts to a win win situation for government union employees as well as the tax payers of the state by employee empowerment and by ending bureaucratic waste.

What’s different?
The multilevel career path of the former bureaucracy is now reduced to one step from the Functional Management Teams to the Steering Management Team. Gone are the hundreds of hours of endless manipulation of employee evaluations. Gone also is the endless bickering and negotiation over the budget. Performance budgeting is no longer needed once the agency has been properly staffed because the functional teams monitor their own progress and if they start to fall behind they can take their own corrective action.

What are the benefits for Georgia’s State Government?
If the state of Georgia wanted to establish a four day week services would not decrease but actually increase from the 24/7 implementation of the CRM. The CRM 25 to 30 call takers would replace the more than 150 or more current call takers. Mid management in the boards and commissions could be reduced by more than 300. If the Steering Management and Functional Management Teams were to be implemented throughout the state government the minimum saving to Georgia is estimated to be $170 million to more than $500 million. See my articles 106 and 116.

Supplement
CRM was originally installed by the city of Hampton Virginia in 2000 and more recently in San Francisco. The Steering and functional management concept was implemented at the McDonnell Douglas Missile Systems Co. in 1983 after my proposal was accepted and approved by Sanford McDonnell CEO of the McDonnell Douglas Corp. The implementation was warmly received by employees and remained in place for more than ten years until the company was disbanded and sold to Boeing in 1997.