A High Performance Explanation
Posted by Scott Spaulding - 6/17/08 @ 10:25 pm - Filed Under City Council, Featured, Local Politics
Note: See John B. Kalb’s post on the HPGN contract here
The Common Council heard “testimony”, in Councilman Mitch Harper’s words, about the High Performance Government Contract that was agreed to in the waning days of the Graham Richard administration.
The basic gist of the High Performance Government Network’s formation is that the City of Fort Wayne had reportedly honed its processes, procedures and altered its modus operandi into a lean, mean, green/black (belt) fighting machine over the 8 years of the Richard administration, reportedly saving about $3 million per year in that span. Two employees in particular, Ryan Chasey and Kate Love-Jacobson, were said to be particularly instrumental.
The rub, however, is that the two would be leaving the city. As the sensei of Sigma, Chasey and Kate-Jacobson were contracted through the HPGN to provide the City of Fort Wayne with $80,000 worth of specialized Network services for the City of Fort Wayne solely and with another $15,000 Fort Wayne would become a member of the Network.
The City is a founding member of the non-profit along with the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, the Indiana Association of Towns and Cities, and Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs. In the last 6 months, governmental entities listed as having utilized the network include the cities of Chicago, Angola, Kendallville, South Bend, Fishers, Carmel, Anderson, New Haven, Bluffton, Valparaiso, Bedford, Brazil, Franklin, and the Chicago Transit Authority.
Besides a brief explanation by Purchasing Director Jim Howard detailing how the contract is indeed technically legal under the $100,000 per calendar year Council trigger - the contract being $95,000 per year - City Controller Pat Roller was the City’s representation on the matter, having executed the contract herself in late 2007.
Citing Council’s decision in the fall of 2007 to cut $3.7 million from the budget and the loss of $10 million as a result of the State’s House Bill 1001, Roller remarked that she contracted the services at a time she felt was “absolutely critical” to the financial future of the City. The reasoning for the late-Richard and pre-Henry authorization was cited as a way to keep the high performance government initiatives going and to lessen the burden on a freshly minted Henry administration. Roller stated that she felt she was doing the right thing to protect and put a process in place to secure the financial future of the City.
On the HPGN side, Joe Kimmel executed the contract with the City. Kimmel served as corporate council to the City up through 2007. Councilman Harper remarked that the HPGN had been incorporated with the State of Indiana in the first quarter of 2007.
Councilman Pape asked of HPGN’s Ryan Chasey and Kate Love-Jacobson what exactly was being delivered. The bulk of the services rendered so far, as reported by the sensei, has been the process of developing a strategic action plan for the City, along with training and performance management projects. The projected completion for the action plan was said to last through mid-July. The outcome is an established set of specific goals and the specific measurements that will be used to gauge the success or failure of any particular goal, which were stated to be specific down to particular employees.
The contract is likely to prove to be a boon rather than a bane, if only because of the power of accountability through metrics and measurements, but whatever strategic action plan is established should be willingly made public.
Who knows, you could even make a Gantt chart for how the plan will be produced and disseminated to the public that paid for it.
(You can send my Six Sigma belt along with the pothole filling crew. I’d like to be sporting it in less than 24 hours.)
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6 Responses to “A High Performance Explanation”
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If they spent the last 8 years saving millions of dollars then shouldn’t those processes and procedures already be in place? Didn’t city employees already go through this training over that time?
What am I missing here?
Let me assure readers that FWP will get a copy of the strategic action plan and we will independently audit future results…
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Another quick thought?
Sensei? I love it.
Does that make the High Performance Govt Network the Cobra Kai of local government?
Chasey: Fear does not exist in this Network does it?
Roller: No sensei!
Chasey: Defeat does not exist in this Network does it?
Roller: No sensei!
Chasey: We do not train to be merciful here. Mercy is for the weak. Sweep the leg Henry!
The outcome is an established set of specific goals and the specific measurements that will be used to gauge the success or failure of any particular goal, which were stated to be specific down to particular employees.
Scott - did you just make that up?
That’s the best double-speak I have read in a loooong time.
When in the private sector I was involved in a number of such projects. If memory serves me correct (which I doubt more and more every day) that the first two we had outside firms help us. Of course part of their contract was providing manuals for us to use in future projects.
Keep in mind these programs often take an major department and look at improving the entire department. So a company has someone within their company who is hired to manage such projects or put on special assignment to manage it. Internal managers, once trained, often do a better job as they know more about the nuts and bolts of the operation.
The head of the department CAN NOT manage such a project while also trying to carry on their normal duties. The project will take too long and will fall apart.
However, once the project is done and goes online there is no need for additional training. The people their have the books that showed how and why they got to where they got. Hence, improving it can be done internal. Keep in mind you are not redoing the operation of a major department every year or so. If you are then something is really screwed up.
I am not sure that the two people who left are the only two within the city that can do the job today. If that is the case then department heads must not have a great deal of power over changing their own departments. The reason is all of this is running the best possible department, with the fewest people, and providing the best possible service. Which includes written goals for all levels of the department to reach.
Any process improvement should be able to show “measureable” results. Just saying that it saved around 3 million dollars doesn’t cut it. Where, specifically, are the cost savings? What processes have been improved for the citizens. How has the citizen benefitted? I observed an increased sales tax. I haven’t seen anything better in my neighborhood or in the City, this includes services.