Every business either makes goods or deliver some specific service. At the Council, one service they deliver is the maintenance of parks and gardens to a particular level. If you think about a Council and the services they provide, there may be hundreds of such services delivered.
At a particular park, our problem was if you asked the workers who do the work what the service level was they would tell you ‘A’. If you asked the Team Leader, they would tell you B, Supervisor C, Department Manager D, General Manager E and Rate Payer F. Imagine conversations around this, what would you see? Frustration. Who’s correct?
Before this can be determined, before we can even get into a debate about good or not good, the first thing that must happen is a meaningful conversation about what is expected/good/normal. The outcome must be an objective descriptor so no matter who is looking at it they ‘see’ the same thing!
We have started by transitioning key stakeholders from the red poster (below) toward green poster. The Level of Service descriptors aren’t perfect (yet), in fact they are still in draft mode, and we’ve only started with four. What I have found that really took me by surprise was the effect that making these Levels of Service has had on the Team Leaders. The conversations now arising are far more fruitful because finally subjective opinions are replaced with objectivity. Reality (as I have said above) is we are still in the draft stages. I know however, based on the conversations, we’re onto something. I truly believe the gold is ‘firstly define normal’.