Kent city leaders hope to see the city operate more efficiently over the next several years if a new performance project accomplishes its goals.
Derek Matheson, city chief administrative officer, explained the details behind the Kent Performance Project at a Dec. 8 council workshop.
“I’ve been here about 16 months and we are doing a lot of great things as an organization,” said Matheson, hired by Kent from the city of Covington. “Lean is becoming part of the culture – at least in some of our departments. Our respect program is well known throughout the organization. But we want to do a better job of leadership development, performance measurement and resident engagement.”
Matheson said as the city anticipates future budget shortfalls it will address whether to increase revenue and decrease expenses but, “We can become more efficient and that’s what performance is all about.”
City leaders agreed staff are doing excellent work, but departments can operate even better.
“All of our efforts are kind of organic – operating on their own rather than coordinated,” Matheson said. “We have seen skepticism of new training contracts, a weariness of a new flavor of the month – a new program coming down from on high.
“Performance is the potential unifying force among all of these initiatives and a way to show the council, staff, customers and the public that all of us are working toward the same target of high performance.”
City staff already has worked with consultant Impact Washington to help implement kaizen, a Japanese business philosophy based on making positive changes on a regular basis to improve productivity.
Because of such changes, the city has cut commercial building permits review time in half from 200 to 100 days, Matheson said.
The city also has made public records requests simpler and with faster response times.
“I feel like I’m at work with some of the things you are talking about” said Councilman Bill Boyce, a Boeing human resources manager. “We have those in business today, kaizen, performance measurement, lean, the type of things that help you become an efficient organization.”
Matheson said the city might need to shift an employee next year from his or her current position to help oversee the new program.
“We really need a person or persons to do the daily work, over the course of the next year and into 2016-17 budget process,” Matheson said. “Maybe we can re-purpose an existing position to develop this further.”
Boyce liked that idea.
“You talk about the need to re-position a person to focus on this – that is a real key to have someone to keep eyes on the data,” Boyce said. “I’m really impressed with what I’m hearing. This is good stuff.”
Surveys of city residents loom as another key piece.
“We haven’t done (residents’ surveys) for sometime,” Matheson said. “It’d be great to do one every other year as one way to measure performance by residents’ expectations.”
Matheson said the six key elements of the program are strategic planning; using lean practices to get more done with fewer resources; respect among employees and to customers; performance measurement; leadership development; and resident voices.
The lean plan helped the city’s two code enforcement officers, who are buried with numerous cases, reduce some redundant steps to speed up case reviews, Matheson said.
Councilman Dennis Higgins also likes the idea of the new program and offered to help Matheson and city administrative staff make the project successful, possibly by adopting a resolution or ordinance.
“In my work I’ve seen some of these things, some have come and gone,” said Higgins, a geographic information systems employee with King County. “The only ones that really work have complete buy-in and top-down clarity.”
Councilman Jim Berrios likes the approach presented by Matheson.
“That was exciting to go through the explanation because it tells me we are intent to head in the right direction whatever that direction is as an unified team,” Berrios said. “We have a heck of a team in the city of Kent, but I’m really excited that we are looking at how to become more efficient and proficient in terms of what we are trying to accomplish for the citizens of Kent.”
Matheson admitted the program could use a better name than the Kent Performance Project.
“It’s a bland title,” he said. “We need a creative mind to come up with something more exciting and imaginative.”
Talk to us
Please share your story tips by emailing editor@kentreporter.com.
To share your opinion for publication, submit a letter through our website https://www.kentreporter.com/submit-letter/. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. (We’ll only publish your name and hometown.) Please keep letters to 300 words or less.
