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June 2018
From Our Office
Human Centered Design
 We are excited to share that starting
this September we are adding a Human-centered Design (HCD) course as part of
our quarterly trainings! Our HCD training was originally developed in the
winter of 2017 after our team completed a multi-week ‘design challenge’, called
Design Kit: The Course for Human-centered Design.
We offered our HCD
training ad hoc a few times, but at the time did not add it to our standard
trainings. Based on customer feedback and our experience applying this approach
when we work on CI projects, we decided to add this as part of our standard
training. Now you can apply HCD tools, mindset, and approach to the way you talk,
experience, and practice Continuous Improvement.
Keep an eye on
our website and on Twitter (@CI_Minnesota) for when to register. Due to the
extreme interactive nature of HCD, space is limited to just 16 participants! You
won’t want to miss this.
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Enhancing Customer Service with Incremental Improvements
Our standard
trainings are offered for free to any Minnesota public sector employee. State
government employees can easily register for training via our internal Enterprise
Learning Management (ELM) system. For non-state employees to register, they
have to have an account set up for them. For years we have had to set up the
non-state employee accounts in the ELM system. This was not a simple
registration experience for our customers. The process for those not familiar
with the ELM system makes it a difficult administrative task as well. In an
effort to better serve our customers, and lift this administrative and time
consuming task, we went in search of a better way.
Our search led
us to a system administrator in another state agency who created external
accounts for other non-state staff. They were able to take over the task of
creating accounts! We received a generic PDF form to use for our non-state
registrants. We still needed to email that form to non-state staff, have it
returned to us, and then submit it to the other agency. Was that a step in the
right direction? Not exactly. This process needed to be up and running fast as
we were announcing new classes soon. We were able to alter the PDF registration
form and have our communications team turn it into a web form available on our
website. Now, once someone fills out the form, it automatically sends it to the
administrator who creates their account!
It is
incredible to think that a process we have owned for years, was quickly updated
and revised to create a simple, one-step process for our external
customers! This significantly enhanced
the customer experience, and almost completely eliminated an administrative
task for our team. This incremental change has had a huge impact for us, and
has been a good reminder for me that solutions don’t have to be one giant
product! Small iterations and customer testing can help lead to time saving,
and morale boosting outcomes!
Geneva Martin, CI Consultant, Department of
Administration, Minnesota Office of Continuous Improvement.
CI Tool Spotlight
Are you
starting a new project soon and want to get to know your team better? Perhaps
you have a new staff member starting and you are looking for a “get to know
you” activity to try with your coworkers? Check out the Team Leap activity, to gain more empathy for your
colleagues’ strengths, work preferences, and more!
CI News
- Interested
to learn about how performance measures might be hurting instead of helping
your organization? Take five minutes to read this article about the impact of measuring performance by
numbers.
- Telling
a story with data is a lot more than data visualization. What Makes a Good Data Story? reflects on the power of data and the
connection to people. Also, did you know
that we have a one hour mini training on “Storytelling with Data”? Check it out
here on our website!
- Familiar
with the Pareto Principle? Read this article on how to be more effective by using the Pareto
Principle in your daily work.
- We
all make mistakes, right? Read about one person’s mistake that permanently altered their perspective
on customers.
This Quarter's Long Read
Solving the customer-experience puzzle:
A guidebook for government leaders,
by Serena Advani, Tony D’Emidio, Sarah Etsy, and Kari Hernandez.
Don't Miss...
Sign up and learn
time-tested CI methodologies and tools that will help you to solve problems
that improve work processes and service quality for Minnesotans!
This month we are offering
our Introduction to Continuous Improvement and Problem Solving trainings on
Tuesday, June 26th, and our Process Improvement Measurement Training
on Thursday, June 28th.
Our training courses are
designed to provide you with the skills you need and can easily put into
action:
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The Introduction to CI training
will show you the basics of CI principles. The hands-on simulation
activity will help you recognize that no process is perfect and most of
them can be improved.
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The Problem Solving course
will help you recognize the root cause behind some of the work
challenges we face and offers useful strategies for identifying
solutions. Much of our work now requires us to show results.
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The Process Improvement Measurement course helps you select
measures that matter and how to use data to guide and sustain the
improvements you make.
With all of these courses
you can take the knowledge and skills you learn back to your workplace to
implement changes. These efforts have real results, saving resources and
staff time, while improving the quality of State services.
For more information and to register for these or other upcoming
trainings visit our registration page!
Minnesota state agencies: Can’t make one of our scheduled
trainings? We’ll come to you! You provide the space, date, and at
least 20 participants, and we’ll bring the training!
We want to connect with YOU!
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Follow @CI_Minnesota to keep up with CI news and examples of people
using continuous improvement tools to "solve problems that change
lives."
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- LinkedIn
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