Comments on: Teaching Elephants to Dance http://www.brsilver.com/2009/07/09/teaching-elephants-to-dance/ Bruce Silver on business process management Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:38:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: ffoulem http://www.brsilver.com/2009/07/09/teaching-elephants-to-dance/comment-page-1/#comment-814 ffoulem Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:14:46 +0000 http://www.brsilver.com/?p=594br#comment-814 In government, most processes evolved over decades to ensure compliance with regulations and its many amendments and exceptions. Not surprisingly, processes have become convoluted and served the bureaucracy instead of the citizen. Now in the 21st century, government is moving to respond to increased client expectations by emphasizing being "client-focused". This is revolutionary in that is it almost diametrically opposite to traditional public administration. In 2004, Service Canada introduced a new streamlined way to apply for a Social Insurance Number (Canada's equivalent to SSA). Cycle time went from 3 to 6 weeks down to less than 1 hour. That was achieved by looking at the whole process A to Z from a client perspective and eliminating waste and duplication. That's the good news. We are now five years later and you would think such a wonderful example would have generated many other projects seeking similiar results. One of the thing we see in our Department is a lot of movement at the senior ranks, which forces us to recreate the wheel to obtain the buy-in of leaders, so instrumental to a change of culture. Getting the organisation to manage its processes requires that cultural change. It is a slow, but worthwhile endeavour. In government, most processes evolved over decades to ensure compliance with regulations and its many amendments and exceptions. Not surprisingly, processes have become convoluted and served the bureaucracy instead of the citizen.

Now in the 21st century, government is moving to respond to increased client expectations by emphasizing being “client-focused”. This is revolutionary in that is it almost diametrically opposite to traditional public administration.

In 2004, Service Canada introduced a new streamlined way to apply for a Social Insurance Number (Canada’s equivalent to SSA). Cycle time went from 3 to 6 weeks down to less than 1 hour.

That was achieved by looking at the whole process A to Z from a client perspective and eliminating waste and duplication.

That’s the good news. We are now five years later and you would think such a wonderful example would have generated many other projects seeking similiar results. One of the thing we see in our Department is a lot of movement at the senior ranks, which forces us to recreate the wheel to obtain the buy-in of leaders, so instrumental to a change of culture. Getting the organisation to manage its processes requires that cultural change. It is a slow, but worthwhile endeavour.

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