Government – Professional Growth Systems

Government

Unique needs of government institutions

Most, if not all, governments face the continuously growing trend of higher expectations with fewer resources to meet them. This trend escalates constituents’ skepticism in the ability of government to deliver to its citizens in a cost effective manner, further fueling anti-government sentiment. There is also a push to privatize government. The combination of these has resulted in government truly needing to think strategically about how it can better meet the needs of citizens.

Shouldn’t that have always been the case, you might ask? And you would be correct. But, for the first time, thinking strategically is not just a nice platitude, it is a requirement.

How do PGS products and services address the unique needs of government:

Two of our products are designed to meet these challenges head on and allow government to think and act strategically with success:

  • Our Vision Navigation® strategic planning process results in an honest appraisal of how an agency is positioned strategically, i.e. with its customers, potential competitors (and yes, government agencies do have competitors), and other environmental trends. It also results in an honest assessment of internal strengths and weaknesses, and lays out effective strategies to overcome the weaknesses. In short, it gets government thinking and performing like the private sector alternatives that citizens are comparing it against.
  • Our Process Advantage® approach to process improvement not only results in innovative process designs that will improve performance by 20-50% but also overcomes the resistance to change often found in agencies
  • All of our products require that accountability for results be built in to the design, the tools we leave with clients, and our follow-up throughout the work of the plan or project. Department and division heads are tasked to rise to the challenge of making both themselves and their teams accountable for results, and we provide the tools and support to get them there.

Examples

Challenge

In 2000, the Alaska Dept. of Transportation found itself under attack from the legislature and public for the cost and poor service associated with six processes for issuing permits in their highway right of ways.

PGS was asked to bid on an RFP to study best practices and redesign those processes, but initially we declined. Our response, “Your design will never be implemented. If you are willing to let us collect data from customers as part of the project and to employ teams of employees to redesign and implement the new processes (core principles of our Process Advantage® design), then we would be happy to bid”.

They made the change, and we won the bid.

Solution

Six employee teams were created to study the systems and customer data, and propose improved processes. The State ultimately implemented designs that cut man hours for this work by 50%. The $1M savings was hailed by the Governor in his next State of the State Address.