Blog posts on public sectorPosts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs - Utopia (Dreamland in the USA) is an Amazing TV Program
Utopia is an amazing, biting, satirical look at modern office life at the Nation Building Authority of Australia. continue reading: Utopia (Dreamland in the USA) is an Amazing TV Program - Quality Comes to City Hall
 Changing to a culture that has a Deming perspective on customer focus is not easy. When you succeed though the way people think is profoundly changed. The City of Madison police department even did customer surveys for those they arrested and used the results to improve the process in ways that make sense. Obviously there are restrictions on what you can do to please those being arrested but this is really always the case – you can’t give all your products and services away for free even if that would make customers happy. continue reading: Quality Comes to City Hall - Quality Beginnings: Deming and Madison, Wisconsin
David Couper: "Deming’s teachings had a strong influence in Madison. Under Mayor Joseph Sensenbrenner (1983-1989), there was a near-total involvement by city employees in applying Deming’s work to city government. These were Madison’s golden years as government, business, and educational institutions worked together to make quality an organizational lifestyle in Madison. Deming helped us to see police work as a system capable of being improved.
We also learned the value of collaborating with and learning from others outside of law enforcement. We came to see that the systems for which we were responsible, were dependent on others around us (like when we realized the important systems-link between poverty, jobs, education, and crime). Most of all we saw the work we did as a system – and a system that could be improved." continue reading: Quality Beginnings: Deming and Madison, Wisconsin - Curious Cat Tax Proposals
 My plan would have 3 parts. I like a flat tax, I doubt it will ever happen, but if we could get one I would be happy. Cruz proposes that (at 10%). I am fine with his proposal to eliminate all deductions but mortgage interest and charity. I would definitely tweak that some – no more than $50,000 in mortgage interest deduction a year and the same for charity. Basically subsidizing it a bit for the non-rich is fine. Subsidizing these for the rich seems silly so I would cap the deductions in some way.
Increasing the giveaways to trust-fund baby as Cruz and Trump propose is the single worst tax policy change that can be made. I have explained previously how bad an idea this is: The estate tax is the most capitalist tax that exists.
Social Security taxes are nearly equal to other income taxes. They are highly regressive. I would eliminate the current elimination of the tax on high income earners. I would just have the tax due on all earned income (no cap). If that let me reduce the rate, great, if not fine it would just make the fund solvent for longer. I would not increase the benefits due for high earners beyond what it is now. continue reading: Curious Cat Tax Proposals - Addressing Systemic Policing Issues in the USA
I have long been concerned about problems with our system of law enforcement in the USA. In recent years one good thing is that the problem is getting much more attention (the increasing militarization of police department however is a very bad trend that has gotten much worse over the last 10 years).
I strongly believe the former police chief of Madison, Wisconsin has very good ideas on what should be done. His blog has many useful ideas and he discusses Deming's ideas often. He also wrote a guest post for the W. Edwards Deming Institute blog: Quality Beginnings: Deming and Madison, Wisconsin. continue reading: Addressing Systemic Policing Issues in the USA - USA Health-Care System Ranks 50th out of 55 Countries
None of these rankings are perfect and neither is this one. But it is clear beyond any doubt that the USA healthcare system is extremely costly for no better health results than other rich countries (and even more expensive with again no better results than most poor countries). It is a huge drain on the economy that we continue to allow lobbyists and special interests to take advantage of the rest of us... continue reading: USA Health-Care System Ranks 50th out of 55 Countries - Burning Toast: American Health System Style
 Democrats and Republicans have created a health care system in the USA over the last 40 years that “burns toast” at an alarming rate. As the symptoms of their health care system are displayed they call in people to blame for burning toast.
Their participation in the “you burn, I’ll scrape” system is even worse than the normal burning then scraping process. They create a bad system over decades and ignore the burnt toast just telling people to put up with it. And when some burnt toast can’t be ignored any longer they then blame individuals for each piece of burnt toast.
They demand that those they bring before them to blame, scrape off the burnt toast. And they act shocked that the "toaster" burns toast. It is the same "toaster" they designed and maintain at the behest of those benefiting from burnt toast and of course it burns toast (those results are the natural outcome of the system they designed and maintain). continue reading: Burning Toast: American Health System Style - Millennium Development Goals
I agree it would be greatly beneficial if the method to reach those goals included a measurement system that provided good outcome and process measures (not just activity measures like spend so many billion dollars). And those measures were used to help determine what was working well and what was not. And then resources were focused where they had been effectively used and where they were not changes were made. The PDSA method should be used to test out potential good ideas on a small scale and then measure the success and invest in things that work and don’t invest in cases when results are bad. The failure to focus on results, and basing development efforts on all sorts of ill conceived considerations, is a large part of the reason many of the problems are as bad as they are now.
I think there is hope for progress in the attempts to improve the situation for people worldwide. However, it will not be easy. A great first step would be to hold accountable those leading the effort (the United Nations, individual countries [most especially the security council, etc.). If we could even get to the point where the progress was visible and failures were an embarrassment to those in power, then we will increase the odds of success. But I doubt failing to reach the outcome measures will be seen as a problem that must be addressed and fixed, instead of explained away. continue reading: Millennium Development Goals - Lean Government
I was one of the founding board members on the ASQ Public Sector Network (now the ASQ Government Division). I also, created and have maintained the Public Sector Continuous Improvement web site for a decade (some additional details on my background).
There have been many great efforts in the government, but still so much more needs to be done.
Here are articles exploring what has been done:
continue reading: Lean Government - More Lean Thinking Applied in Government (2005)
Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center:
the Tanker Division utilized an array of process improvement tools to facilitate improvements while increasing quality, efficiency and safety; thus enabling them to become the benchmark effort in lean implementation for Tinker Air Force Base. The results were dramatic: within four years, the average yearly flow time for a KC-135 PDM dropped 52%, the number of aircraft on station (WIP) decreased 49%, and capacity increased 75%. continue reading: More Lean Thinking Applied in Government (2005) - Education Improvement
Education is another area where applying management improvement concepts can be difficult. The Education area does require special care but management improvement concepts can work very well in Education.
David Langford has done some great work in this area. He wrote a book, Orchestrating Learning With Quality, which while I would definitely recommend it for anyone planning on applying these concepts... continue reading: Education Improvement - Government Lean Six Sigma
Once the political decision has been made to eradicate polio then that desire can be carried out – and politics really has little impact. Other examples are not as simple. A political decision to eliminate AIDS runs into political controversies in selecting the best strategies to accomplish the goal.
A desire to eliminate hunger, poverty or homelessness run into differing opinions on how those problems should be addressed. I can’t imagine any politician against the elimination of those problems. However, many politicians will be against various tactics to accomplish those goals.
Political decisions have management components but arguing about the poor management effectiveness of political decisions is a bit too advanced for our current capability, I believe. It seems silly for a government to subsidize mansions being built in hazardous areas where insurers would not insure construction, but for political reasons it continues. It seems silly to have the political leadership prohibit the government from negotiating lower drug costs from suppliers, but they do. continue reading: Government Lean Six Sigma - Public Sector Management Using Deming's Ideas
Madison’s quality improvement efforts began after then-Mayor James F. Sensenbrenner and his staff were exposed to the teaching of W. Edwards Deming in 1983. A pilot project at the motor equipment division made substantial improvements in prioritizing repairs, improving communications with customers, reducing steps in the inventory purchasing process and, ultimately, reducing vehicle down time, all of which saved money and improved service at the same time. Based on the success of the pilot, it was decided to expand the philosophy throughout city government.
continue reading: Public Sector Management Using Deming's Ideas - Public Sector Management (part II)
Deming did acknowledge that the United States government was not designed to be as efficient as possible. From page 198 of Out of the Crisis “Government service is to be judged on equity as well as on efficiency.” He then quotes Oscar Ornati “We have forgotten that the function of government is more equity oriented than efficiency oriented.”
Deming did not focus on the nature of government extensively, but my recollection is that he acknowledged the wisdom of the American style of government (with checks and balances and fairly complex process for creating legislation) even though parts of that system intentionally makes change difficult. continue reading: Public Sector Management (part II) - Improving the 401(k) System
Many people don’t even take advantage of a 401(k) to save for their retirement. From a public policy perspective it creates a huge long term problem. The economy will end up with millions of people that didn’t save for retirement and will be a drain on those who did save for retirement and the rest of the economy.
So Congress actually passed a good revision to the law. Employers will now be required to default to having employees save for their retirement in 401(k) plans. The employee still has the option to decline doing so, but now, without such a choice, they will automatically save for retirement. continue reading: Improving the 401(k) System
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