Green Lamp

As the weather begins to change and winter gives way to spring, I am compelled to face the reality that winter is often full of unnecessary accumulation and disorganization.  This entropy occurs without effort.  One way to overcome disorder is spring cleaning.

Spring cleaning is the great annual ritual of cleaning a house from top to bottom, and it’s typically performed after a long winter.  From a state and federal public sector perspective, a decade long winter is coming to an end, and it’s time to engage in the great tradition of spring cleaning.

From an organizational perspective, spring cleaning is synonymous with process optimization, efficiency and effectiveness.  Take a step back and review what you and your organization are doing and why.  This is a fundamental concept of Lean.  Spring cleaning and Lean are about the identification and elimination of waste.

At home, spring cleaning would include the purging of a green lamp currently hiding under your basement stairs, a gift from some well-meaning relative 10 years ago.  In a public sector organization, this should mean reviewing policies, executive orders and legislation with a critical eye and discarding the green lamps.  Unfortunately, spring cleaning in public sector organizations is optional, just like in a home setting.  The results, in both cases, are obvious.

Public sector organizations are being crushed under the burden of never having performed a spring cleaning.  Year after year, well-intentioned policies, executive orders and legislation continue to pile up.  Processes become so complex it takes an entire workforce to navigate.  Opportunities to introduce efficiency and effectiveness are strangled.  Eventually your organization can no longer move let alone respond to demands for change.

Public sector organizations, at both the state and federal levels, have found themselves with a rapidly-shrinking pool of resources, due in part to the lingering worldwide economic crisis.  Unfortunately, at the same time, their constituent base is increasing its demands for accountability in the delivery of high quality services.  Optimization is the only way to do more with fewer resources, or to provide more services with the same resources.

Without real spring cleaning in public sector organizations, any hope for optimization, increased efficiency and effectiveness will be severely hampered.  It is time to toss out the green lamps.

- By Kent James, Principal