Lean in King County: Approach Supports Continuous Improvement, but Actions Are Needed to Improve Strategy and Measurement

The County does not have enough information to assess the extent to which Lean is creating value that balances the investment of time and resources. While King County has been applying Lean for more than five years, the approach lacks many of the elements of a mature Lean deployment. Since 2011, the County has deployed Lean by conducting trainings, coaching employees, and implementing more than 180 process improvement projects in over a dozen departments.

Two issues limit the ability of the County to ensure that Lean is successful. First, there is not a common understanding about the purpose of Lean in King County among decision-makers: some emphasize cost savings, while others emphasize employee engagement and process improvement. Second, the County lacks comprehensive mechanisms to track and assess the wide variety of Lean efforts and their efficacy.

To more fully realize the potential benefits of Lean, we made recommendations aimed at making the purpose of deploying Lean more explicit and more closely aligning Lean deployment with strategic planning. Additionally, we recommend regular assessment against a maturity model and improving measurement to better assess the county’s Lean progress.

“Lean” is a problem-solving approach that engages employees to identify and eliminate unproductive elements of their work. It is one of the primary ways the County Executive intends to continuously improve county services. In the future, the County Executive envisions Lean being the framework with which the County does its work, impacting every county agency. This audit focuses on whether the deployment of Lean to date is realizing benefits and is on track to fulfill its purposes.