Practical Innovation in Government

6

The Top Leader’s Role in Creating Front-Line–Driven Improvement

As the New Brunswick story shows, for a large department or organization, front-line–driven improvement means much more than having a bunch of front-line leaders independently improving their units. In addition, it does not mean that improvement is happening solely on the front lines. It means that when identifying and solving problems—at whatever level they occur—the organization takes advantage of front-line knowledge. This often includes significant involvement of front-line personnel on high-level problem-solving teams.

Consider the projects at the Moncton Provincial Court to fix the scheduling issues and at the Vehicle Maintenance Agency to reduce the cost of parts inventories ...