SLO County kicks off new program related to karate to boost efficiency, save money

San Luis Obispo County kicked off a new program on Tuesday designed to boost efficiency in its operations.

The program, called Lean Forward, is modeled after Lean Sigma Six — a five-phase plan that modifies or eliminates steps in a process to make it more efficient, according to interim county administrative officer John Nilon.

“It’s just a scientific way of looking at every process and asking yourself two basic questions: Is this step required by law? And does this step add value?” Nilon said. “If you can’t answer yes to both of those questions, maybe you consider eliminating them.”

For example, when a person wants a building permit, they start by submitting an application.

That form then goes on a journey through the San Luis Obispo County Planning and Building Department, where it is reviewed by multiple staffers before the applicant completes more forms, Nilon said.

“At some point you ask yourself, does the form even make sense?” Nilon said.

For example, Lean Forward will look at which steps should be cut from the process of approving a building permit to make it faster and easier, Nilon said.

“We’ve laid the foundation for this to be a long-term cultural shift in our county,” Nilon said. “We’re just one ‘why’ question away from somebody saying, ‘Why do we do this?’ and eliminating a large process that no longer has value.”

The ultimate goal is to streamline county processes so they better serve constituents and save taxpayer money, Nilon said.

The Planning and Building Department is the first to implement the Lean Forward program, Nilon said.

During the next year, other county departments can sign up to participate, too.

The program’s five phases are defining a problem; measuring the performance of a process related to the problem; analyzing its successes and failures; improving the process; and controlling the new process after it’s implemented so it remains efficient, according to Nilon.

When Kern County implemented its own Lean Sigma Six-style program, it trimmed down a nine-month planning and development process to about 21 days, Nilon said.

Program could create ‘higher quality, faster and less costly’ programs

Mike Brown, government affairs director of the SLO County Coalition of Labor Agriculture and Business, said he supports Lean Forward being implemented in San Luis Obispo County.

Brown had a 42-year career in governmental management, including serving as the executive officer for Santa Barbara County. He also regularly attends San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors meetings to speak on behalf of his organization.

Brown hopes to see supervisors creating policy to serve constituents rather than themselves or the organization, he said.

“What you want mentally in the brains of everybody from the Board of Supervisors to the county administrative officer, department heads, division heads, everybody all the way down through — that they’re there to serve the customer,” Brown said.

Brown said he hopes the program makes processes “higher quality, faster and less costly.”

He noted that the program will only succeed with support from elected officials who run county departments, such as the auditor-controller, assessor, county clerk-recorder, district attorney and sheriff. Those officials are accountable to voters, not the county administrative officer, so they get to choose if they implement the program or not.

“You have to get buy-in on this stuff,” Brown said. “If you can get everybody on board to learn those techniques and actually beginning to enjoy them, you significantly improve the culture of the organization.”

SLO County to hire program consultant

The county plans to hire a consultant to train staff to implement the Lean Forward program, Nilon said.

The consultant has 14 years of experience administering a similar program in a sister county, Nilon said, and SLO County will pay them about $100,000 for more than one year of work.

The Lean Forward training program is related to karate, with participants earning a new color belt each time they complete a phase of the training, Nilon said.

“To get successful there, you have to have a project that you’re walking through,” Nilon said.

The first phase of the training lasts three to five days, but other levels of the training last longer, Nilon said, adding that it takes months to earn the highest level of a black belt.

“As we get more individuals trained and as they are trained higher in the system, they will be able to take on more and more complex processes in order to streamline them and provide better services,” Nilon said.

The county hasn’t yet established measurable goals for the program, such as saving a certain amount of money or making a certain process more efficient, Nilon said.

Right now, the county is focused on training staff in the program, Nilon said.

“The key is to kick it off, right. Start the process to get the ball rolling,” Nilon said. “This will give us a real great pathway, runway to success.”