CASE STUDY: DHA ID TURNAROUND PROCESS

1. CASE STUDY: DHA ID TURNAROUND PROCESS 15th PUBLIC SECTOR TRAINERS’ FORUM (PSTF) CONFERENCE, 25 – 28 SEPTEMBER 2011, BLOEMFONTEIN BY THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL: CIVIC SERVICES MR S V MKHIZE

2. BACKGROUND • Focus of case study: successful turnaround of ID books processes in the Department of Home Affairs, reducing the processing time from 127 days to less than 45 days. • The purpose of this case study is to identify the key elements of this successful change process and to extract key implications for government in terms of improving front-line service delivery elsewhere. • The case study has been drawn up as a collaborative effort between DHA and DPME, in consultation with DPSA (which played a key role in supporting DHA with the turnaround project).

3. BACKGROUND The purpose of this case study is to: • Extract the key elements of this service delivery improvement turnaround process • Introduce the operations management approach used by the DHA • Introduce some of the tools and systems utilised by the DHA to improve its speed and quality of service • Present the lessons for the public service • Extract key implications for government in terms of improving its front-line service delivery models

4. DHA TURNAROUND:CONTEXT Since 2006, a number of change projects were instituted to turn around the performance deficiencies in the department. The DHA realised that the challenges in the department were so entrenched that it will require not just a quick training of front-line staff, but requires a new approach to doing its business. Drawing on management approaches commonly used in production industries, it introduced an Operations Management approach and backed this up with tools and on-the-job training to ensure the approach becomes part of the culture of the organisation. DHA now have the in-house capacity to roll-out this approach to other service improvement projects such as permits.

5. DHA TURNAROUND: CONTEXT The problem: • In June 2007, it took an average of 127 days to get an ID, with some customers waiting as long as 250 days. • These long waiting times had a number of knock-on effects causing the entire business to become more and more dysfunctional: • many customers were applying multiple times at different offices, • temporary IDs had to be renewed many times, • 40% of customers at front offices were there multiple times to enquire about the progress with their IDs. • Long queues, frustrated customers, complaints and bad press were the order of the day. • There was no mechanism to track and monitor status or progress with applications and the backlogs of applications throughout the Central Production Facility was standing at more than 236 000.

6. DHA TURNAROUND: CONTEXT • A Support Intervention Team, led by the DPSA, recommended a fundamental transformation of the department. • The turnaround project encompassed all ID related processes and customer interactions; both at the front of the value chain (more than 242 Home Affairs offices around the country) as well as the back end (central Identity Document processing facility).

7. TOOLS AND APPROACHES Governance Arrangements Project Steering Committee: led by the Minister and met once/month for strategic guidance to the project. EXCO: chaired by the DG, met every two weeks and was authorized to take all key operational decisions and also provide strategic oversight. Operation improvement a strategic issues: The management of the DHA understood operational matters, related to improved service delivery, to be strategic matters and showed visible leadership of the project with regular visits to the officials involved in production. Stakeholder management: A commitment was made with the Unions that this would be a non-retrenchment change-process and this was made public by the DG, to manage resistance from staff. Programme Management Office was established to coordinate the work of the different work streams and ensure deadlines are met. DHA officials were hand-picked and paired with consultants, with the approach being to coach, hand-hold and mentor DHA officials. At the peak of the intervention, 150 consultants and 300 DHA officials were involved in managing the process.

8. TOOLS AND APPROACHES B. Comprehensive organisational baseline: as-is assessment • Established the “as is” with regards to service delivery, organisational culture and decision making processes, by collecting in-depth data. • This included a customer survey, which identified that 60% of customers in queues were there to query the progress with ID applications. • A three month work process assessment was done, which involved a walk-through of each stage of the process of ID production and identification of redundancies. • This information assisted the DHA to identify quick improvement such as: • the Customer Service Centre (an outsourced call centre) • Track and Trace service (an electronic tracking system for IDs with SMS alert service). • In addition, the baseline assessment highlighted that the key problem was poor supervision, no targets and no teamwork and changing this did not require retrenchments, recruitment or large scale changes in human-resource policy.

9. TOOLS AND APPROACHES C. Coaching Consultants vs. Doing Consultants The consultants were hired in 2007 to help lead a department-wide turnaround. They were chosen for their extensive experience of the public service and their proven track-record of managing complex public-sector turnaround programmes, notable having been involved in the SARS-improvement programme. Their mandate was made clear – because of the non-retrenchment guarantee, the focus was not on hiring new staff, but rather on process-streamlining and improvements to performance management. The consultants were expected to implement these reforms in a manner that transferred skills and leave behind tools and systems that can be used by officials.

10. TOOLS AND APPROACHES D. Utilising Production and Operations Management approaches and tools The ID process was analysed and a new end-to-end process was designed, reducing the steps from 80 to 15. Examples of improvements and tools introduced are: A track and trace system: required staff to scan IDs in and out of each stage of the process, allowing the turnaround team to understand how much time an ID spent in a given section and to locate slow areas, New finger-print scanning machines : resulting in the turnaround time in the Fingerprint Verification Section being reduced from 27 days to 4 days and clearing of 236 000 backlogged records. A single courier service was put in place, with a strong SLA, to pick up ID applications and drop off completed ID books at front offices, Immediate changes: The processing of Temporary IDs used to take time and added to the workload – these were now issued on the spot, Officials were organised into small cells/teams instead of long assembly lines in the Completion Section, Workstations were demarcated and colour coded with clearly defined areas for incoming and outgoing work, A front office checklist was developed to ensure that application information is correct and complete, Individual and group performance targets were negotiated with staff. Targets were realistic and achievable.

11. DHA CASE STUDY: TOOLS AND APPROACHES E. Productivity and Quality Review, Reporting and Monitoring (1) Visible and daily monitoring based on actual performance data was introduced. Weekly quality reports were produced and distributed to all offices and monitored, including exceptions reporting and monitoring. Regular operations review meetings are held at all levels to monitor output and quality. Special focus on management of key service provider contracts

12. DHA CASE STUDY: TOOLS AND APPROACHES E. Productivity and Quality Review, Reporting and Monitoring (2) Group performance was made visible and managers were trained to keep track of it, using wall charts, track and trace reports, published rankings, monthly awards for individual and group’s performance and brief early morning meetings where production and targets are discussed every day. The idea was to de-link the performance management process from the formal performance assessment process and to make performance management motivating and not punitive.

13. DHA RESULTS Reduced turnaround times for IDs from an average of 127 days to less than 45 days; By end of 2008, 93% of customers polled said waiting times for IDs were faster than expected and 92% said they were impressed with the new SMS notification Reduced turnaround times for passports from an average of 47 days to 23 days; An efficient Customer Contact Centre answering 95% of calls in 20 seconds and resolving 90% of calls on first contact; Full spectrum Track and Trace system functionality allowing for the tracking of applications throughout the production process as well as sending of SMS alerts to customers; The extension of Track and trace to cover other documents including Passports, Birth, Marriage, Death, Citizenship and Late Registration of Birth;

14. DHA RESULTS

15. DHA RESULTS

16. DHA: LESSONS • Leadership • The DHA leadership: • communicated a compelling, holistic vision of effective and efficient service • visibly championed change by addressed anxiety • enrolled staff in the transformation (no retrenchments, discussed targets, negotiated deliverables) • acknowledged and supported staff, and invested in developing them through mentoring/coaching, recognized achievements • created teams and interdependence, and meaningful connection between people • Created a positive organizational climate (cleared workplaces, paid attention to how people feel at work) • The leadership, including the Minister, understood that operational matters which are in a poor are strategic matters, requiring the attention of top management. This attention needs to be sustained until operations are functioning well.

17. DHA: LESSONS 2. Dedicated Programme Management • Complex change processes require a dedicated project management office, • Staffed with hand-picked internal staff who have a mix of technical and change-management skills. • Dedicated and committed internal people should be identified and give the time and budget to drive the project. • Although the DHA used external support, they allocated their own people to work with consultants, and these officials are now driving the turnaround process for the permits project.

18. DHA: LESSONS 3. Appropriate external support It is difficult for a service delivery department to do this kind of turnaround without external assistance, simply because the managers are usually too busy with day-to-day work and crisis management. In addition, these types of operations management practices are not well known in the public service. Securing the right external assistance is important –must have proven experience of successfully implementing service delivery improvements in the public service & must be skilled in on-the-job coaching and mentoring. Affordability and capacity to manage such external consultants may be a challenge for other service delivery departments and municipalities. Should some form of dedicated capacity be created within government to provide such support to service delivery departments?

19. DHA: LESSONS 4. Using appropriate operations management tools and approaches • Operations management tools based on simple technologies can be used to provide essential management information. Examples are: • Mapping existing work processes • Establishing baseline service delivery levels • Work processes reengineered to identify ways of doing things better, smarter, faster. • Reconfiguration of work teams in line with improved work processes - teams are formed around the interdependence of individual and their work. • Setting realistic targets for improved service delivery levels • Use productivity wall charts to communicate targets and to motivate staff for improvements • short daily meetings to keep track of individual performance and to train others in the methods of performance management and monitoring; • monthly achievement awards for groups and individuals • publish rankings of unit performance. • Use track and trace systems to monitor the progress of a service through the different steps • queue management systems, • The methodologies used by the DHA could be applied in most service delivery improvement programmes, notably health facilities; vehicle licensing centres, municipal services, infrastructure delivery and others.

20. DHA: LESSONS 4. Using appropriate operations management tools and approaches cnt: • The methodologies used by the DHA could be applied in most service delivery improvement programmes, notably health facilities; vehicle licensing centres, municipal services, infrastructure delivery and others cnt: • Create core business items funding stability: assess the basics needed to run the business and ensure these are always able to work (eg rent, electricity, bandwidth, manager, based on the specifics of the service being offered). • Supplier management: SLA and quality checks to ensure they do not hamper your operations (couriers, transport, drugs supply etc) • Should specialised dedicated capacity be created within government to provide support and advice to service delivery departments to adopt operations management approaches?

21. DHA: LESSONS Building and maintaining a Performance Culture, based on data, that is motivating and not punitive In the DHA, the DG and top management were the champions of evidence-based performance culture and data-driven monitoring. They took it upon themselves to demonstrate this through their engagements with staff. They used operations management terminology to communicate with staff and based communication on the data collected from the work processes. At the level of operations, tools such as early morning 10 minute health check meetings where production and targets are discussed, should be encouraged.

22. DHA: LESSONS 6. Start with one service standards improvement project • Many public service turnaround projects are complex and involves change at many different levels of the organisation. • Start with one service standard improvement project to create an example of what the vision of a effective and efficient services unit will look like. • One winning team can serve as encouragement to the rest of the organisation.

23. DHA: LESSONS 7. Communication • Change projects are by their nature conflictual • Start by explaining the process and obtain ideas for improvement. • Negotiate individual and team targets. Don’t reprimand for not doing well, instead recognise those who do well. Use informal social pressure to improve performance. • Involve the public through stakeholder forums: for advise, for guidance and for external monitoring.

24. DHA: LESSONS 8. On-the-job training vs classroom training The current public service training approach is largely geared towards classroom training. The DHA experience demonstrates there is also a need for on-the-job training, coaching and mentoring as a learning methodology, especially for turning around frontline service delivery processes.

25. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (1) (1) Summary of key success factors: • Active and visible top management leadership • Dedicated internal programme management with selective external support • Get the basics right first and focus on one improvement to build confidence • Credible base lining and benchmarking • Realistic target setting • Use operations management tools and approaches • Introduce and maintain a performance management culture that is motivating and not punitive

26. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (2) (2) Dedicated capacity may be needed in government to provide support to service delivery departments to successfully implement service delivery turnaround programmes. The DG in the Presidency should coordinate a task team consisting of DGs of DPSA, PALAMA, DHA, DPME to work on this. (3) Turnaround processes require a very specific leadership style and behaviour from senior management. Senior managers of other service delivery departments should gain exposure to the leadership experience of the DHA through programmes such as Project Khaedu. (4) Operations Management, as an approach for service delivery improvements, has tremendous value and a strong drive is needed to introduce this into service delivery programmes. (5) There is a need to introduce more on-the-job coaching and mentoring as a learning and training approach, particularly for frontline service delivery operations.

27. KeyalebogaKe a leboha Ke a lebogaNgiyabongaNdiyabulelaNgiyathokozaNgiyabongaInkomuNdikhoulivhuha Thank you Dankie Go to http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/dpme.asp for PME documentsincluding narrative guide to outcomes approach, outcomes documents and delivery agreement guide