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Task-Centered Shared Services

Task optimizations are your best opportunity to quickly make progress and gain support for Shared Services. Task-centered evaluations allow you to identify processes that can be optimized to reduce manual data entry, improve data accuracy, automate functions, add business process value, reduce employee burden hours, or improve citizen experiences. Human centered optimizations are where you can make real improvements by removing obstacles and impediments to mission success and creating job satisfaction and employee support. You can almost always make progress with task optimizations to achieve quick Shared Service wins.

Your role is to coach the discovery of legacy tasks ripe for innovation, prioritize targets, and review budgeted deliverables with appropriate timelines so you can lead, influence, and advise successful implementations of employee-driven task optimization initiatives.

Key Questions

  1. Do I understand the Tasks-related game plan for each major line of business? Are the plans built around recommended Lean or hybrid methodologies embracing “sprints” or other interim segments?

  2. Have the line of business leaders established short- and long-term goals and objectives for task-related process improvements? What are those goals?

  3. Do you have an active role in coaching, reviewing, and advising on optimization initiatives? What key relationships need to be developed to increase your influence within your agency?

  4. Are employees actively engaged in task-related Shared Service initiatives? Are we establishing a culture of continuous process improvement led by employees? How?

  5. Does my Agency support collaborative and transparent visibility into the status of current and planned task-based optimization projects? What similar projects have been completed or ongoing, and what can you learn as best practices from those projects?

  6. Do we have appropriate incentive plans recognizing achievement of shared service goals? Who are your allies in developing appropriate incentive plans?

  7. Is my Agency actively engaged with cross-agency coordination of resources, best practices, and vetted solutions available through GSA MAS Awards and each of the government-wide Quality Service Management Offices (QSMO)? and centralized? Which lines of business are impacted? Which lines of business should be more involved?

     

Checklist

  • Coordinate with leaders across major lines of business to coach and develop their Shared Service plans. Track your contacts and progress with the SAPOC Toolset here.

  • Assess readiness through employee engagement in working groups, surveys, interviews, scrum boards, and other observational sciences. See the Survey example in the SAPOC Toolset here.

  • Ensure Task-related Shared Service initiatives align with measurable and realistic goals and objectives.

  • Develop and utilize Agency preferred project management methodologies to oversee shared service tasks initiatives for all FIBF lines of business.

  • Review Marketplace listings for currently available QSMO approved solutions.

  • Default to open access, transparent and collaborative oversight, and reporting on the status of current legacy tasks and processes and their respective optimization plans. Control and provide access to collaborators in your dedicated Agency Playbook.

  • Reward, promote and share successes on an inter-agency and public basis.

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