In early 2022 the Province of Ontario awarded $1 million dollars to the City of Burlington to improve its development application process. For many years the City has made efforts to improve its processes, having only small impacts on reducing processing times and improving the customer experience. This time was different. This time, Lean Six Sigma, Agile Project Management, and Human Centred Design Thinking methodologies were utilized to not only achieve significant reductions in application processing times, but also improve the customer experience with the application process. The team reduced application processing times in a significant way, in some cases resulting in a 95% reduction in the time it takes to review and approve an application. Applications that used to take 6-24 months to process now take as little as two weeks. This project was called the Streamline Development Application Fund (SDAF) project, and it has served as a flagship example of the impact Lean, Agile and Human Centred Design methodologies can have on effecting real improvement in the City’s service outcomes.
The timelines prescribed by the Province for this project were challenging, and by the time the city had drafted a charter and submitted a report to Council, the team had approximately eight months to achieve its future state. Staff requested approval from Council to single source (if required) consultants and project resources to allow for faster progression throughout the project and approval was granted. This approach was paramount in the team’s ability to meet project timelines and secure the full amount of available funding from the Province. The team utilized the provincial VOR to assist with consultant selection.
A large cross-functional team was established and included upwards of 40 staff across 9 different departments. These staff were all trained and certified as Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belts. They also participated in training for Agile project management and Human Centred Design Thinking. The project team chose to focus on the Pre-Building Application process used to review low density residential buildings and renovation. This process is used to review smaller residential projects, but applications are high in volume and the benefits realized from improving it could be scaled to larger processes, like the Site Plan Approval Process, in the future. Scoping improvement efforts on a smaller process gave the team more control and helped ensure that project timelines could be met.
The project team applied the Lean Six Sigma method first, reviewing the current state of the application process, identifying where pain points and waste existed and generating ideas for improvement. A cause and effect matrix was used to understand where improvement would have the most impact on the process overall helping the team get the most out of their efforts despite the challenging project timelines. The team executed nine different experiments to test solutions before fully implementing them. The use of experimentation before full implementation gave the team a safe to fail environment to push the boundaries of process design and try new things without resulting in negative public consequences. As a result, the solutions were more innovative and lead to more significant improvement outcomes.
Following the process improvement review, the team began to design solutions for process components including the application form and a self-serve tool that enabled customers to see the status of their application within the process. Regular customers of the Pre-Building Application process were identified and had direct involvement in the solution design and testing processes. This was a whole new way of approaching the customer experience at the City of Burlington, where solutions were historically designed by gathering input from customers but not allowing them direct involvement in design and testing. Having the customer more intimately involved gave further insight regarding their needs and expectations for service design than previously acquired. Solutions were therefore designed to better meet the needs of the customer and achieve outcomes that are not only important for the business but also for service recipients.
Another notable outcome to the project was the cultural change within the departments that participated. Today, staff regularly apply the skills they learned in the training they received during the project and there is evidence of a strong continuous improvement and customer centric mindset in their work.
Overall, this project was very challenging but very rewarding for the team. Staff regularly report that they can see the impact of their effort in both the relief they feel to their workload, and to the feedback they receive from their customers. It is also worth noting that the change affected by this project was so impactful that City Council approved $1 million dollars be added to the City’s base budget every year as an “Innovation Fund”. This fund is intended to further encourage improvement efforts across the city and allow staff to scale solutions from the SDAF project to larger development application processes. The approach and methodologies used in the SDAF project are now considered best practice at the City and are cornerstones in how staff approach innovation and improvement. They have been absorbed into key City service strategies like our Digital Service Strategy, Continuous Improvement Strategy and Customer Experience Strategy. The cultural shift that came out of this project will have lasting positive effects on the City and its improvement efforts for many years to come.