Bureau/Division Director’s Meeting

February 16, 2005

Commissioner’s Conference Room

                                                                        

 

The following are points of interest that were discussed at the Bend the Curve portion of the Bureau/Division Director’s meeting on Wednesday, February 16, 2005:

 

• Leah reported on who had and had not been covered in the one-on-one conversations with all employees.  BUC Field Tax, UIC and DAH are areas of concern.
• Arthur and Kim gave a report on the cost to-date for the BTC Initiative and projected costs for the next six or seven months.
• Kim recapped what has been happening so far, i.e., the kick off meeting in June, the ELT monthly meetings, the three 1-day meetings for all staff, the China Lake meetings and Facilitator training.
• DOL made a commitment to invest in themselves, their employees and continuing improvement. 
• VSM Project Teams will come to management with implementation plans and management must find ways to say yes to their findings and suggestions.
• John Rioux distributed and discussed a paper on how to get to the future state.
• Teams need timelines for savings and should be prepared to answer questions on how they reached their conclusions. If bulk of savings is in personnel, how are decisions made regarding staff reductions and staff reassignments.
• Attrition will be discussed at next meeting - what savings will occur and how tasks will be eliminated or reassigned.
• Have had success in bringing employees together across divisional lines, some for the first time.
• Need to make investments now in order to have savings in the future.
• Kim Smith will devise a schedule to have VSM Teams make presentations to the Bureau/Division Directors at this weekly meeting.
• Team members will be asked if they have a timeline for implementation.
• John Rioux will devise a list of questions needed to help decide if recommendations are feasible.
• Teams can go forward on their own with low cost, no cost items.
• There is no mechanism in place to capture savings for items that Teams self-initiate.
• There still needs to be an in-depth discussion on how to acknowledge implementation and success.
• Expenses of BTC, to-date, have not exceeded budget.
• Budget does not include cost of redesigning the Department.
• Kim has estimated a cost of $200,000 based on the Conference Model.
• Directors are questioning the continued cost of using outside Consultants and ask when do we start doing this on our own?
• Susan Gallant also agrees DOL should be taking over by now and will prepare a proposal on how DOL can become independent.  This will be on the March 2 Agenda.
• Consultants need to monitor newly trained Facilitators for a certain number of hours in order for them to receive certification.
• Kim has budgeted $115,000 through June 30, 2005.  After that the Department should be able to be independent.
• Kim encouraged Directors to choose the Phase II Projects keeping the big picture and savings in mind.
• Because of time constraints, only four projects will be chosen at this time.