Case Study

Background

Housing and Homelessness Services (HHS) is a division within the Queensland Government Department of Housing and Public Works. The Innovation team within HHS launched an initiative to identify 6 innovations nominated by staff for prototyping and delivery within a 12 month period. One of the finalist initiatives is the reduction of staff effort in processing tenancy related complaints.

Objectives

HHS engaged S3 Consult to provide coaching and mentoring services in Lean and Agile techniques for the innovation projects. Specifically, HHS awarded a contract to the S3 Consult team to –

• Train, coach and mentor the innovation teams to deliver projects using Lean techniques.
• Quantify the business benefits of their projects and rapidly prototype solutions to demonstrate effectiveness.
• Approach the design of new processes or services using a client centric approach.

Project Approach

S3 Consult specialises in the application of Lean methods to deliver tangible business improvements. The variety of projects involved in the innovation portfolio required a blend of techniques which we rapidly deployed to the teams . We facilitated workshops with all 6 teams to determine project status, define targets and develop action plans. This was followed by the development of a program wall, visualising the objectives, status and plan for all projects in one location, creating a single source of truth.

We coached the teams to use Lean techniques to test process and service changes and rapidly develop prototypes of their ideas, demonstrating immediate benefit to customers as well as the organisation. Our coaches provided training and mentoring to staff across Queensland to collaboratively shift practices away from traditional to new ways of working. These efforts led to breakthroughs where, for the first time, 10 service delivery centres from across the state collaborated to standardise their complaints handling processes for the benefit of customers.

Project Outcome

The project has achieved the following outcomes to date –

• Successful launch of multi-lingual public housing application and information forms targeted at migrant communities.
• Successful launch and scale-up of a program to educate young Queenslanders on their responsibilities as tenants in private rental situations.
• Reduction in complaint handling lead times of over 80% for minor complaints, recognised as a breakthrough Departmental achievement.
• Approval of an innovative Aboriginal adult eduction program for public housing residents at a remote Queensland community.
• Multiple staff nominations for State and Federal level innovation awards.