Driving Measurable Results in Government Efficiency

Process Improvement is a Culture Multiplier

While technology implementation plays an important role in the modernization of government, high efficiency can only be achieved when those systems and all core work processes are both designed to perform. High performance organizations cannot be sustained with broken or inefficient processes, no matter how advanced its technology implementations. Eventually, teams burn out from constant emergencies and workarounds and those periods of high pressure cause a lasting negative impact on the morale and culture of the organization. With the added realities of constantly changing operating conditions and Administration priorities, government agencies must have a well-developed mechanism for continuous improvement to reliably achieve performance goals. In our experience, we have found that a strong continuous improvement program becomes a multiplier effect for organizational culture, ultimately producing much higher levels of morale and empowerment. To that end, NOVACES has built its services around the following core principles that have been proven effective after over two decades of cooperation with government workforces:

• Knowledge transfer to civilian employees builds trust and a culture of continuous improvement
• Experts being embedded in the client organization builds real relationships and momentum
• Solutions developed alongside the people who are closest to the work are the best and most lasting

Project Management Discipline Delivers on Strategy Implementations

Most government agencies are large, complex organizations with an extremely important mission to deliver for the American taxpayer. The strategic priorities that must be implemented to successfully deliver on that mission require cross functional coordination and consistent communication. Additionally, any set of strategic priorities most likely lives in the quadrant of important, but not urgent and therefore get drowned out by the daily requirements of work at hand and, of course, the very urgent emergencies that are always receiving the most attention.

For those reasons, NOVACES developed a project portfolio management capability to support our clients’ strategy implementations. Our teams of project management experts build project plans and subsequently provide the structure and communications necessary to positively drive this highly important work forward in the face of all the other distractions of daily emergencies and other competing priorities that are undoubtedly encountered.

An executive team also benefits from the visibility created when these plans are organized into a portfolio environment. In addition to the dashboards that quickly communicate status and risks, the information also enables leaders to meaningfully engage with the organization’s managers to resolve any issues that are hampering progress before they grow into major challenges. The portfolio perspective is a great tool to understand cross-functional resource loading and reinforce buy-in from key stakeholder groups. Ultimately, time can be allocated more favorably to these important tasks and strategy can be realized more quickly and more completely.

Like with our process improvement services, our project management services also operate on a set of core principles that have been tested by years of successful government implementations:

• When everything is a priority, nothing can be a priority – unless you’re operating in a project portfolio
• Visibility of a complicated plan leads to more buy-in and cooperation
• Performance dashboards enable executives to be more proactive leaders

The Benefits Are Real

NOVACES remains committed to being a true partner to our Federal clients who require measurable results from these enterprise management strategies. We invite you to explore our case studies and insights to see the kind of impact we have delivered. In government, the ability to drive performance and efficiency gains is derived from an approach that enables our team to work hand in hand with stakeholders from a client’s organization. The solutions we implement are measurably more successful and better sustained when our teams are embedded in your organization. Below are just some of the challenges that leaders are facing for when they call on NOVACES for support:

• Reduction of process complexity and cycle times to meet requirements or demand signals
• Chronic quality issues and delivery failures with challenging or unknown root causes
• Desire to capture key performance indicators in a dashboard system for management purposes
• A requirement to organize and manage the implementation of a strategic plan
• Coordination of a complex, cross-functional or enterprise project
• Difficulty synchronizing the organization with new technology or an information system
• An reorganization that requires high-level mapping of value streams and processes

NOVACES, with its roots in process improvement, has built core capabilities around a suite of enterprise management strategies that have been proven effective in private sector organizations. We’ve taken these approaches and, with our founding background in applied research, specialized in adapting them for implementation within government agencies.