Often when our team goes in to a school system to perform an assessment, the staff members in the departments being reviewed appear nervous. From toe tapping to hand wringing, we have seen it all.  The amazing thing is how different many of them are at the end of the assessment.  The same individuals who were nervous at the start are often excited about the opportunities to make positive improvements that were identified during the assessment.   It is a contrast as bold as night and day!

I think the reason is that people often have a misunderstanding regarding exactly what we mean when we use the word assessment.  People frequently interpret this to mean that we are going to audit their department, but these are two extremely different things.

When we assess we are not looking to find where people are missing the mark – not complying with policy or state and federal laws.  We are not investigating something wrong or trying to catch someone doing something wrong.

When we assess we are looking at the functions and tasks that are currently being performed by the department. Are organizational or operational waste detected?  In other words, are there tasks or items getting in the way of efficiently and effectively getting work done?  We are looking at the outputs of tasks.  Is there extreme variation in the outputs?   Are the outputs 100% reliable? Are there ways to eliminate waste and reduce variation to increase efficiency or improve organizational focus?  Are there best practices we have observed that we can share to help the departments in your school system?

When we assess, the key word is opportunity.  We are looking for opportunities to help you improve your processes, performance and overall department. While we do have to go back to our offices and conduct detailed analysis, we can often share some immediate recommendations to address the opportunities that we discover.  Many times people are so excited to see these opportunities and to make their work better, that they start implementing our recommendations prior to us concluding the onsite portion of our assessment.

Interested in uncovering opportunities for you school system? Contact LEAN Frog today for the free LEAN Opportunity Readiness Assessment (LORA).  See how we can work with you to improve the work performed by your department or school system.