Continuous Improvement

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word cloud of vision document
The Continuous Improvement effort is developing a prototype process for improving how state and federal agency systems that fund, regulate, or organize for ecosystem recovery might improve services to local actors working on ecosystem recovery. It is inspired by Gemba Kaizen theory, initially developed within the Toyota Production System, where improvement opportunities are identified by the people who do the work on the "factory floor" and rapid improvement efforts are enabled through shared practices and encouraged by leadership. We work using the resources we have, because self improvement in an intrinsic part of good government. The current iteration has received support from the Puget Sound Partnership's Ecosystem Coordination Board and is being directed by Lead Entities, Local Integrating Organizations and Ecosystem Recovery coordinators.

The Improvement Network

Our hypothesis is that to implement kaizen/continuous improvement in Puget Sound requires simultaneous collaboration among five parties:

  1. The Coordination Community must work with local actors to look for opportunities to improve the recovery operating environment, and in good faith work with agency programs to identify improvements.
  2. Agency Programs must allocate effort to have good faith conversations with local actors to evaluate sources of waste and identify countermeasures.
  3. Agency Leadership must agree that spending agency effort on improvement in this way is important.
  4. Funders must provide increments of funding to create teh capacity for improvement, where countermeasures exceed the capabilities of any one, but the community agrees about the importance of improvement.
  5. The Ecosystem Coordination Board/Salmon Recovery Council must sustain our communities attention to complete this work in a way that is efficient, and addresses the need for work on critical areas of ecosystem recovery.

Ongoing Improvement Projects

Supporting Materials

draft flow chart of likely components of continuous improvement
Limited resources for project management continue to limit improvement projects linked to local integrated team requests. EPA and TNC have recently stepped up to support an Acquisition Barrier Analysis. This has inspired a proposal for a Near Term Action:
  1. Video proposal to "Coordination Community" following ECB agreement to ask coordination community to assist in development of continuous improvement system.
  2. File:Continuous improvement meeting 3 notes.pdf - notes from third ECB sub-committee meeting.
  3. File:Problem backlog detail.pdf - a list of improvement opportunities with some description text for each problem.
  4. File:Problem backlog.pdf - a copy of a draft google sheet with potential improvement projects identified over the course of this project.
  5. File:ECB process flowchart.pdf - a draft process flow for completing a new A3, discussed at the 7/31 sub-committee.
  6. File:A3 culvert regulation.docx - a draft document describing an evolving proposal for how to improve culvert permitting processes based on Snohomish Culvert Replacement Regulatory Coordination
  7. File:King County 2018 lean a3 training.pptx - the powerpoint used in the A3 training below.
  8. YouTube Video of A3 Training Presentation (1hr) - provided by Fred Jarrett, King County
  9. File:King County 2018 A3 training.pdf - Training in lean management for ECB sub-committee
  10. Presentation to Ecosystem Coordination Board - File:Cereghino 2018 continuous improvement concept for ECB.pdf
  11. File:Cereghino 2017 continuous improvement NTA.pdf describes a conceptual strategy for integrating ongoing work by EPA, TNC, NOAA, RCO, and Ecology on conservation system improvements, to build on each others unique capacity, and develop closer communication with local integrated teams.
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