Building High Performance Government through Lean Six Sigma

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“Building High Performance Government is a fast read with a big message. It explains how the inevitable downsizing of governments at all levels—federal, state, local—does not have to mean fewer or lower-quality services. This book highlights viable strategies already in use today to create better alignment and greater productivity in government.”—Graham Richards, Former Mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana

“Every level of government is experiencing a budget crunch these days, and that always results in slashing services. This book can help public sector leaders find another option—how to deliver on their core mission at a much lower cost.”—Sean O’Keefe, CEO, EADS  North America, former Administrator of NASA, former Secretary of the Navy and former chancellor of Louisiana State University

“A solid read for federal, state, and local government leaders wondering how to ‘do more, without more.’ Building High Performance Government focuses on the main things that leaders can do to help their organization get more out of each tax dollar while also improving quality and speed—an absolutely essential requirement in today's fiscally constrained environment.”—David Melcher, Senior Vice President, ITT Corporation; President, ITT Defense & Information Solutions, US Army Lieutenant General (Ret.) and formerly the Army's Military Deputy for Budget and Deputy Chief of Staff for Programs in the Pentagon

Download the Executive Summary for Government and Public Service Agencies [PDF, 529KB]

Download the Executive Summary for Federal Government and Public Service Agencies [PDF, 572KB]

Download the Executive Summary for State, Local and Public Service Agencies [PDF, 559KB]

No corner of government has been spared from turmoil in recent years. Most organizations have faced one or more of the following challenges: severe budget cuts, increased demand for services, unanticipated additional responsibilities, and calls for “improved performance”. 

To meet these challenges, government and public service agencies typically had only two choices: increase the budget to increase services or cut services to balance the budget. Now, there is a third option, which is explained in Building High Performance Government through Lean Six Sigma: A Leader’s Guide to Creating Speed, Agility and Efficiency. It’s called operational excellence, and it has been implemented in the private sector—with great success—for more than two decades. This hands-on guide, written by the global consultants from Accenture, shows government agencies how to apply these business principles in any public organization.

For Government
State revenues are expected to remain stagnant or sluggish through fiscal year 2012—just as demand for core government services accelerates. With cash-strapped national governments unlikely to come to the rescue and citizens’ resistance to tax increases intensifying, tough times for state, regional and local governments are the new normal. They have little choice but to find new ways of delivering essential services.

Building High Performance Government Through Lean Six Sigma: A Leader’s Guide to Creating Speed, Agility, and Efficiency presents a “win-win” alternative— “performance anatomy” as a way to reduce costs while maintaining or increasing services.  The authors outline a “how-to” approach that combines the principles of operational excellence and performance anatomy with real-world examples from public service organizations. 

• Ohio Shared Services established in 2009, consolidated financial functions previously siloed among individual agencies into one organization, enabling each agency to focus on its mission and achieve 15 to 20 percent improvements in productivity.  They also reduced the cost of processing travel and expense reports 67 percent – from $37 to $12 per transaction.
   
• New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Agency, with approximately 8.5 million riders daily, saved $40 million in 2010 by eliminating 141 of 280 projects, thereby focusing resources on top priorities.

Featuring case studies from the public sector, including federal, state, local, agencies, bureaus and departments, this unique guide takes readers inside government organizations where these principles, including a “performance anatomy”, are already making a difference. Public service leaders will discover low-cost techniques deployed by the Naval Air System Command and the Internal Revenue Service—and effective solutions for problems as diverse as homeland security, disaster response, health care costs and dwindling resources. Building High Performance Government provides a proven method for adapting to the “new normal” of lower budgets by showing how to do even more with even less—creating a learning, working environment that is prepared to react positively to change. This is how the top companies in the world increase productivity and profits, no matter the market.

Learn how to:

• Improve the outcomes delivered while lowering the cost to deliver them.
  
  
• Streamline operations by increasing speed, agility, and efficiency.
  
  
• Build the anatomy for high performance to strengthen any public service organization.
  
  
• Manage assets, decrease risks and losses, and deliver true excellence.
  
  

Download the Executive Summary for Government and Public Service Agencies [PDF, 529KB]

Download the Executive Summary for Federal Government and Public Service Agencies [PDF, 572KB]

Download the Executive Summary for State, Local and Public Service Agencies [PDF, 559KB]

Mark Price is a senior executive in Accenture’s Management Consulting Practice where he passionately assists Global 500 and large government agency clients. With more than 20 years of consulting and industry experience, Mark is recognized globally as an expert in the strategy and execution of High Performance, Lean Six Sigma and operational excellence methods. He coauthored business best seller The Lean Six Sigma Pocket Toolbook with more than 312,000 copies sold and has published numerous whitepapers on lean six sigma and high performance techniques.

Walt Mores is a senior executive for Accenture Management Consulting, supporting Health & Public Service clients. He started his professional career as a US Naval officer and aviator then held a variety of management positions in industry. With more than 20 years of professional experience, he has guided deployments of operational improvement methodologies for both commercial and public service clients such as Xerox, Alcan, and the US Army.

Hundley M. Elliotte is the global lead for the Process Performance group within the Accenture Process & Innovation Performance service line. He has more than 15 years of consulting experience, focusing on managing business value, setting strategy, identifying customer needs, and identifying and implementing improvement opportunities in diverse business sectors. Previously, Mr. Elliotte worked for more than a decade in the corporate sector, holding sales, marketing and general management positions with a leading pulp and paper manufacturer and with a plastics company. He is based in Atlanta.

• Learn more about Accenture’s view of operational excellence.
  
  
• Read about the Accenture Institute for Health and Public Service.
   
• Learn more about Accenture Management Consulting.
  
  
• Learn more about other Accenture titles relating to Lean Six Sigma

• BN.com
• Amazon.com
• Borders.com
• Booksamillion