161- Decision making: Dealing with indecisiveness.

Posted on August 31, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Lancing Farrell 1100 words

This is the fifth post in a series. Some organisations, like some people, just can’t make up their minds. Ram Charan believes that leaders can eradicate indecision by changing the tone and content of the everyday conversations occurring throughout the organisation. This is difficult in local government where CEO’s and top management are often insecure and sensitive to challenge.

Breaking a culture of indecision will require leaders to challenge assumptions, share information, and bring disagreement to the surface. Charan offers the following example to highlight the signs of indecision:

A presentation is made to a meeting about a proposed project. There is silence until the CEO speaks and asks questions that show they have taken a position on the matter and made up their mind. Then others speak up to agree with the CEO, keeping their comments positive.

It appears that everyone supports the project. But, some are concerned and keeping their reservations to themselves. Over the next few months the project is slowly strangled to death.

It is not clear who killed it but it is clear that the true sentiment in the room after the presentation was the opposite of the apparent consensus.

The key issue is that the true sentiment is the opposite of the apparent consensus. Charan says that ‘silent lies and lack of closure’ can lead to a false decision that is undone by unspoken factors and inaction.

How often does this happen in local government? Continue reading →

160 – Making a local government service catalogue. Part 2: What to do with it?

Posted on August 27, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Colin Weatherby 630 words

In the first post I described a service catalogue and looked at where (and how) to start making one. This post discusses what to do next to refine the service catalogue and use it to improve organisational performance. I have no doubt that a service catalogue is essential to starting a discussion with the community about services required in a rate capped operating environment, however it should also drive continuous improvement by providing a focus for service reviews.

The ‘first cut’ service catalogue that defines services from the customer viewpoint and links that view to organisational structure, is really just the start.

Further analysis is required to determine the link between the service catalogue and organisational strategic plans (especially the council plan). This can be achieved by coding the spreadsheet of cost centres with the themes or key objectives or themes in the plans. This will allow further analysis by pivoting on different criteria. What is the link between council plan objectives, customer defined services and cost centres? Continue reading →

159 – Making a local government service catalogue. Part 1: Where do you start?

Posted on August 26, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Colin Weatherby 740 words

Across local government in Victoria councils are starting to discuss core and non-core services and the need to make a service catalogue – in other words, list of all the services they provide. In part this interest has been sparked by rate capping and the need to better understand where revenue is going. Any council attempting to increase rates above the Essential Services Commission cap will need an argument that is supported by their community. So what is a service catalogue?

In its simplest form it is a list of all the services a council offers, and by default, anything not on the list is not offered. It doesn’t mean that other services can’t be offered but there will need to be consideration of the costs and benefits before committing to do so. The list will need to be controlled once it has been made. Deciding what services you will and won’t offer (and who will and won’t receive them) is at the heart of strategy. Continue reading →

158 – Customer perception. Why is it important in local government services?

Posted on August 26, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Lancing Farrell 670 words

Image adapted from Slack, Chambers, Harland, Harrison, and Johnston 1998, Operations Management, 2^nd Edition.

There have been a number of posts on aspects of customer service – who are our customers, customer-introduced variability, how do you listen to the ‘voice of the customer, internal customers , what Gordon Ramsay might think about council customer service, and captive customers. If there has been a thread through these posts, it has been the need to look at services from the customers’ viewpoint and to understand constitutes value for them.

The posts on value have discussed how to understand both private and public value – why do we provide the services that we do, the private-public value continuum, applying the public value scorecar , public value gap analysis, local government and commodity services, value-led management, and a series on a new theory of value creation in local government. The idea that people seek private value and councils set out to create public value is at the heart of a lot of customer service problems.

One aspect of customer service that hasn’t been discussed is the role of perception. Continue reading →

157 – Captive customers. Why are they so special?

Posted on August 24, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Colin Weatherby 850 words

The idea that our customers (i.e. the ratepayers, residents, businesses and citizens in the community) are captive to our services is not new, however the implications are seldom discussed in local government. What does it really mean for service providers when their customers are forced to pay for services they may not use, or for service levels that may not meet their specific needs?

The idea that we will have choice in matters affecting our lives has become sacrosanct in western society, especially if we are paying. Customer service standards today are unrecognisable from those of the last century. Nobody expects to wait. If what they want isn’t available, they expect the service provider to get it – and quickly. If service falls below the normal standard they expect compensation. Social media is giving voice to unhappy customers and putting pressure of organisations.

In this environment, getting customers to pay for services in quarterly instalments and then receive standard services designed to suit ‘everyone’, leads to obvious conflicts. Continue reading →

156 – Decision making: The calendar effect and local government planning.

Posted on August 21, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Lancing Farrell 700 words

This is the fourth post in a series. Most councils prepare their plans in a very conventional way. All of the councils where I have worked have been the same. The planning process is frequently criticised but seldom challenged. There is a better way.

Despite the effort put into strategic planning by many organisations, it can actually be a barrier to decision making. Michael Mankins and Richard Steele believe that difficulties in strategic planning are attributable to two factors:

The calendar effect – it is usually an annual process.
The business unit effect – it is usually focussed on individual business units.

This is completely at odds with the way executives actually make important strategic decisions. They make the decisions that really shape organisational strategy and determine the future direction of the organisation outside the formal planning process. And they often do it in an ad hoc way without rigorous analysis and debate. Continue reading →

155 – Decision making: Policy and decision making in local government.

Posted on August 19, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Lancing Farrell 750 words

This is the third post in a series. Policy should guide local government managers and their teams in making most decisions with the confidence that if the decision is challenged it can be assessed against the policy and shown to be justified.

Some decisions won’t be able to be made this easily and a ‘one up’ escalation or other simple decision review processes should enable a decision to be made quickly and efficiently. There will be some decisions that are outside existing strategy or policy that will need to be referred to more senior management for new thinking about the decision that is required.

In a high performing organisation, making decisions that are consistent with organisational strategy, policy and plans should be straightforward for the majority of decisions. Continue reading →

154 – “If it is easy or there is a budget, councils are probably doing it”.

Posted on August 17, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Whistler 400 words

The flip side of this statement is that if it is difficult or there is no budget, councils probably aren’t doing it. This is one of my most common bits of advice to residents. The reality is that councils can really struggle to do difficult things. It isn’t that they don’t want to. It is just that the system militates against it. It is worth thinking about the hallmarks of something that is difficult for local government.

It is often something that is new – something that the council hasn’t done before that has to be learnt. This takes time and effort, and can be risky. Someone could be upset by it. You might make a public mistake. I once worked for a council that wanted to be recognised as a leader, but only by doing things that other councils had already proven would work. Continue reading →

153 – Decision making: Some challenges for local government.

Posted on August 13, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Lancing Farrell 580 words

This is the third post in a series. Sometimes making decisions is difficult and a guide is helpful. Local government has some particular types of decision making that frequently present challenge. These decisions need to involve the right people at the right level in the organisation. Often they cut across functional areas.

Two of the key challenges for local government in becoming a decision-driven organisation are whether or not to centralise decision making and how to ensure cross-functional cooperation in decision making. I will start with centralisation. Continue reading →

152 – Rate capping – an inconvenient fact.

Posted on August 13, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Whistler 220 words

Image source

Lancing Farrell has made some good points in her post about rate capping. I think the ESC has been optimistic. The impact of application of the CPI and WPI and the Efficiency Factor is likely to be more significant for many councils, particularly large urban councils.

The main reason I say this is that the average of 40 % of expenditure on labour costs doesn’t reflect the reality of many councils. For many it is 55 to 60%. This means that a significant part of their labour costs will be adjusted for CPI, not the higher WPI. I have reproduced the table from Lancing Farrell’s post above.

I have produced my own table comparing a council that has 60% labour costs. Continue reading →

Local Government Utopia

Two hundred and fifty (or so) opinions, essays and observations

Monthly Archives: August 2015