Agenda - Planning Commission - 06/01/2017

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Elements of Value Key Performance Indicators Benchmark (Quality) Percentage of staff participation Comprehensive Comments from all divisions (Quality) Percentage of comments that Clear Language provide citation or definition (Quality) Percentage of comments Chronological completed with template Timeliness Percentage of comments delivered within 14 days not process disparagement. When teams get together to discuss this work, they often feel a sense of guilt at how convoluted the system has become. They think it's their fault. But unveiling all the hidden machinery and small foibles is vital to understanding how every- thing can work better. So as the staff members work to define their process —as it is, not as it should be —the conference room can start to feel more like a confessional. But again, as a "blame -free autopsy," this is a critical step to everyone's progress as part of a team. Not a time to point fingers. When the various actions are defined and the map is clear, the next step is a return to the principle of value mapping. Only, in this case, the value mapping is far more fine-grained. Here, the team begins to analyze the dysfunctional process they see before them. They look at every step and consider whether it is worth keeping. Like editors searching for the next unnecessary adjective, the team becomes ruthless, cut- ting what isn't needed and keeping only that which is truly, deeply valuable. Value in this much smaller sense goes back to the notion of the critical path. Not the more simplified version of "the big pic- ture" but a version that shows how every step creates an action that gets the client closer to what they want: the final output. In our case, the final output is the timely deliv- ery of a set of complete, consolidated, and chronological comments. If the team agrees that a certain step gets them closer to what the client wants, it is marked with a "Value - Added" designation. Processes also have steps that are nec- essary even if they do not get a client closer to what they want. Such steps are marked as i00% on all documents i00% on all documents i00% on all documents z00% of all review cases "Business Value -Added" in the sense that our work cannot function without certain actions taking place. In the instance of conceptual review, a prime example is the act of inputting one's comments into our case management system (Clayton n.d.). This does nothing for the client (they don't have access), but it is necessary for the business. Every other remaining action is marked with a "Non Value -Added" (NVA) designation. One of the more satisfying aspects of this work is looking back at the number of NVA ac- tions that are found in every original process map. This is the stuff of red tape bureaucracy and bad customer service. Each NVA item is removed from the future process, liberating staff and clients from things they neverwant- ed to do in the first place. Altogether, the value-, business value-, and non -value-added items are compiled by percentage so that one can see the overall picture of what often occurs in a process. It's not uncommon to find a development review process that has more than 5o percent of its actions classified as non -value added. Remov- ing those items cuts a job's demands in half — an incredible improvement. In the case of our conceptual review process, we discovered 44 percent of all actions were unnecessary. On our other bookend, building permit review, we eliminated and revised even more steps, reducing our time line bY7i percent. What's left is the lean, efficient process that the team has defined by simple subtrac- tion. The team is thus a veritable Michelange- lo, freeing the sculpture from the surrounding marble. As a result of their collaboration, they can understand the new process in a deep way that compels them to use it together in a consistent manner that imbues great team spirit. People are often excited to go back to work and try it. But a process, no matter how lean, can't be deemed effective until you know what you're trying to accomplish. Establishing Pull The old adage is true: What isn't measured isn't managed. And if value is determined by the quality and timeliness of what we deliver, we need to create measures that can help us create maximum value. One such measure should represent the quality element and another measure should represent timeliness. Working with your staff to establish these two measures together, collaboratively, is the key to creating ownership and buy -in. In our case, we knew that quality was best achieved when we delivered com- ments that were comprehensive, clear, and chronological. We knew timeliness was best achieved when comments were delivered within 1.4 days. The table at left illustrates our basic KPIs. Our new process ensures these bench- marks are met by establishing pull. We've designed a process that can easily ensure we "pull" our product through in a timely fashion, as demanded. But only to a certain extent. We don't have capacity to meet all possible demand. If we were to receive, say, io con- ceptual review meeting requests for a single week, and these requests were pulled through the process at the same time, we'd probably see quality suffer. We simply wouldn't be able to coordinate in a way that has everyone in the room consistently for those meetings. So in- stead, we set a cap based on time and space. We reserve a single conference room for four hours a week on Monday afternoons. This typi- cally serves four such meetings a week. This allows our staff to coordinate their time, keep the meetings in a consistent space, and thus have all the critical elements up front for the rest of the process to be a success. In order for applicants to receive the value we can offer in the time they deserve, we must adhere to this basic capacity limit. That's what establishing pull is all about. Backlogs can happen as a result, but that's a result of excess demand for the process, not excess waste within it —a critical difference. Continuous Improvement But these capacity limits don't last forever. The most enjoyable aspect of process im- provement is that it ingrains a new way of ZONINGPRACTICE 5.17 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION I page 6