Lean

Last week the theme was "Lean". No, this concept is not my New Years resolution but actually a Government initiative. I attended a series of presentations that illustrated the success of Lean Ministry wide on the topics of strategic planning, blood and plasma, surgical mapping, and special needs equipment loans. Viewing the before and after transformations of these Health areas were pretty amazing.

I touched on Lean a little bit in my last post – but basically the concept is to create a more efficient government by eliminating wasteful practices. Each Lean project has a team leader, and team to support the project. The current state is then evaluated, an implementation plan is created. Then a map is created based on how the process should look in the future.

Here at the Deputy Minister’s Office, the Lean project has been to assess and eliminate bottlenecks in the briefing note process. The project looks at the whole briefing note process - from a briefing note request to final approval and send-over to the Minister’s Office. The former Assistant to the Deputy Minister was the lead of the project, and in her absence I am the new team leader. I am pretty excited about the project, and hope to see it to completion!