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January 2018 Newsletter

2017 Lean Gallup Results
Lean engages and empowers our staff to improve productivity, quality, morale and customer service. From our district's Gallup Employee Engagement Q12 survey, staff members who have participated in Lean training, project work or are part of our governance structure were sub grouped to compare their engagement to the district as a whole. Lean engagement for 2017 is 50% engaged compared to the DMPS overall engagement of 38%. Further, that is a 6% increase from 2016!
Our January Status Quo Breaker is...
Julie Gilde, Executive Assistant for Certified Staff in Human Resources, is being recognized as our January Status Quo Breaker! Julie is actively examining her processes and implementing just do it improvements. To keep her team informed, she adds her changes to their team action board and goes over them at team meetings. Keep up the great work, Julie!

The Status Quo Breaker is a monthly traveling trophy recognition of an employee for their contribution to process improvement, to say thank you for being Lean and/or for helping make DMPS Leaner.
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Types of Lean Projects
Are you considering a process improvement project? Not all Lean projects are Kaizens that require multiple days away from your day to day work. Every process and scope of work will be different and require different amounts of time. Below are guidelines used to determine the type of project and time needed.
  • Just Do It – identify and solve process issue individually. Action plan implemented within 30 days.
  • Rapid Action – identify and solve process issue in one day or less with a team. Action plan implemented within 90 days.
  • Business Process Improvement – identify and solve process issue in two to three days with a team. Action plan implemented within 6 months.
  • Kaizen – recommending future state solution for complex process issue within four to five days with a team. Action plan implemented within 1 year.
The 5 Whys
The 5 Whys is a Lean tool designed to uncover the root cause of a problem. If we don’t solve problems at the level of the root cause, we risk the same problem resurfacing in the future. To utilize this tool while problem-solving, you simply continue to ask "why?" to dig deeper and deeper. Asking "why?" five times is a rule of thumb. You may need less or you may need more. Watch this short one and half minute video of the 5 Whys in action.

Video created by the American Society of Quality (ASQ).

Shout Outs!

Thank you to the Operations Leadership team for allowing me to attend your team meeting to talk about Lean!
Way to go Technology for creating a Tech Lean Team to meet weekly to discuss and prioritize Lean ideas and projects!
Great work Community Education transitioning to electronic letters of agreement for your instructions, saving postage costs and time!
Awesome job Curriculum team in using the 5 Whys to uncover root cause issues within grade books!
Outstanding Community Partners for setting performance measures and monitoring monthly at team meetings!

Past Newsletters

March 2016
April 2016
May 2016
June 2016
July 2016
August 2016
September 2016
October 2016
November 2016
December 2016
January 2017
February 2017
March 2017
April 2017
May 2017
June 2017
July 2017
August 2017
September 2017
October 2017
November 2017
December 2017
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Des Moines Public Schools
Continuous Improvement
1000 Porter Avenue
Des Moines, IA 50315