cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

The applicationsplanning cycle time (from arrival of the application to sending out ofapproval) by 30 per cent if they focused on it for long enough and drewout some simple agreed actions.Various core problems were identified:• Seating arrangements were not optimal. The department was splitbetween two buildings for historical reasons. Time was being wastedgoing to and fro, looking for people and searching for things.• Lack of knowledge of different roles in the team was causing misunderstandingand friction.• One administrator was particularly overloaded with tasks that shewas finding extremely boring.• Lack of a cataloguing system meant that time was wasted searchingfor paper-based items.• The planning officers were often out of the office, but were not accessible.It was impossible to get messages to them, which was in turnholding up decision-making processes.The following actions were agreed:• The team was moved so that they could all sit in the same office.• Four people were asked to learn more about each other’s roles byspending two hours a week together on joint projects.• The administrator shared out her ‘boring’ tasks on a weekly basis.• A simple computer-based cataloguing system was introduced.• Planning officers were given a shared mobile phone, which they usedto check every half-day for messages.These simple measures resulted in a 27 per cent reduction in cycle time ofthe planning process. The department started to reduce the backlog, andlife became less stressful for everyone.302