Employees share how they’re using New Technologies, Lean

King County Executive Dow Constantine hosted the latest Employee Town Hall on Thursday, Feb. 6, and learned how employees are using new technologies and Lean to be more effective in their jobs. The event also featured by a question and answer session. The meeting was broadcast live over the King County network to employee desktops. A recorded version of the broadcast will be available on this page soon. Watching the Employee Town Hall is totally optional.

Emcee

Sandy Hanks, Business Development and Contract Compliance, Manager, Department of Executive Services, is a member of the Finance and Business Operation Division’s management team. She leads a team of diversity professionals dedicated to the principles of inclusion, civil rights and equal opportunity. Sandy and her team work to implement King County strategic plan goals to achieve economic development and workforce objectives to make it easier for small businesses to compete for county contracts; support job creation and workforce development strategies by administering the county’s apprenticeship program and monitoring contractors’ efforts to meet these objectives.

Lean Panel

Dr. Benjamin Sanders, Medical Director, Jail Health Services, has final responsibility for all clinical activities in the County’s adult jails. He has served as medical director since 2004, and since that time has overseen the development of the jail’s clinical practice guidelines and quality program, as well as the implementation of the first electronic health record for JHS. As part of JHS’s leadership team, Dr. Sanders has served as a clinical champion for JHS’s Lean journey, which started in earnest in late 2012. Dr. Sanders also has obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the University of Washington.

Danotra McBride, Project/Program Manager IV, Department of Adult & Juvenile Detention has served King County in various positions since 2002.  She currently serves as the Quality Manager, Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Coordinator, Tier 4 Board Manager and oversees compliance with the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) Accreditation.  Previously, Danotra worked for Public Health, Jail Health Services where she began her Lean journey in the Psych Services Array Project and more recently leading a Medication Management Kaizen Event.  Danotra is a graduate of Washington State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business/Entrepreneurship.

Jay McNally, Lean Specialist, Office of Performance, Strategy and Budget, is one of two Lean specialists on the county’s Continuous Improvement Team.  His primary responsibilities include coaching leadership, developing a Lean management system, coaching Lean apprentices, and facilitating Lean improvement activities.  Prior to joining the county in 2012, Jay spent 7 years as an internal Lean consultant at Group Health Cooperative facilitating transformative improvement events, teaching Lean skills to staff and leadership, and working with organizations that came from around the world to learn about the Group Health Management System (Lean).

New Technologies at King County Panel

Belinda Rose, Customer Service Director, King County Information Technology leads service delivery management teams that provide IT services for King County. Belinda has more than 25+ years of IT experience, primarily from the private sector. She had led teams across the globe to develop, operate, and drive continuous improvements related to IT operations, IT product and service delivery, and IT service management. Belinda holds bachelors from Saint Mary’s, and an MBA from Florida Institute of Technology.

Kathy Brown, Director, Facilities Management Division

Bill Kehoe, Chief Information Officer (CIO), KCIT, has served as CIO and the Department Director of King County Information Technology (KCIT) since August of 2010.   Bill is responsible for a department of approximately 450 information technology professionals in KCIT with an operating budget of $76M and has responsibility for and chairs the IT Governance and Project Oversight committees in King County.  Completed initiatives include:  the consolidation of the Executive Branch IT staff and budget into KCIT in July 2011, help desk consolidation of multiple executive help desks to a single King County help desk, the full implementation of a IT service catalog and associated rates, and the implementation of the 2013 - 2014 KCIT budget solely on customer demand and revenue associated with the external customer services and rates. 

Archive

The second Employee Town Hall held on October 15, 2013, addressed emergency preparedness and employee development and support. You can read more about this event, view a video of the event, and read about the panelists by going to this archive.

Lean Panel

Lean thinking and Lean tools enable us to create more public value with the resources we have.  By listening to our employees, eliminating waste, and constantly experimenting to find better ways to work, we can deliver better results for the people we serve.  We can also free up resources for other uses.  That’s better value. That restores the public’s confidence in their government.  That makes democracy work.

What's new in the Gemba? - Jennifer Lindwall and Melody Bennett seized an opportunity to use Lean thinking on an everyday project: updating a driver’s manual. You don’t have to conduct a 5-day kaizen event to take advantage of Lean. More 

Lean Lesson - In Lean, we utilize visual systems to give people information, and visual management to make good decisions. More

Recommended Reading - Big Company Disease is a one-hour webinar presented by Pascal Dennis. This webinar complements "The Remedy,” the subject of November’s book club meeting. You do not need to read “The Remedy” to watch the webinar and participate in the December book club meeting. Please watch the webinar and be prepared to discuss.  BookClub

New Technology

Are You a Mobile User? - If you like to work untethered, but connected then you might choose our Tablet offering for your primary workstation. You can stay connected with wireless Internet and wireless access to the internal network. Your primary apps will be cloud based, meaning no large applications on your machine are necessary. You might be a minimalist that doesn’t want to be weighed down. Instead you will use browser-based tools like OWA, PeopleSoft, Outlook Anywhere, and Office 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and SharePoint. We welcome you, mobile user – we have the tools to help you succeed, on the go.

Office Professional - Nobody messes with the office pro. You are a go-to employee, you drive the pulse in your office - and you know how to get stuff done! You need capacity for all those big projects you work on, and your workstation would probably be the Performance Pro. You have the latest version of all the software, and love your Lync client for sharing your desktop, transferring files, and creating shortcuts to getting the information you need. You use a smart board at every meeting, and use OneNote for any collaborative note-taking needs. And you are a champion of SharePoint. Putting your files online means you can access them from anywhere, at any time. Because your creative process knows no limits, we applaud you – office pro.

Future User - You want to use your own device? We don’t mind if you BYOD, and understand that efficiency coupled with performance is your MO. We’re glad that you are using the solar charger and we know you take pride in never plugging anything into the wall. File Shares are something you’ve never heard of, as everything is shared through SharePoint in your world. All apps run from the browser, most everyone is mobile, we’ve embraced the Internet of Everything. And yes, you look good in those new glasses.