Dorian Long shares her first exposure with Lean when she participated in a Lean kaizen event working to streamline the Medicare Waiver program. She enjoyed visualizing the process maps to expose the waste, and how the event increased employee engagement for the social workers. She also saw commonality with Lean and how they perform social […]
Laurie Ann Wagner from the Connecticut Department of Social Services helped start their lean project in 2012. She learned about Lean methods, but also noticed some similarities to previous improvement methods she was familiar with, so it came easy to her. One of the first problems they tackled was realizing that forms were redundant across […]
Social work was selected as the Model Value Stream (showcase) for the Department of Social Services (DSS). They decided to develop a program called Social Work Kata, which helps them quantify the work they do (more qualitative into quantitative data), prepare for changes in work being done to help with lack of resources, and ultimately […]