Beyond "Business As Usual"

In these times of declining resources and increasing demands, "business as usual" no longer is an option for the Cooperative Extension System. Iowa State University (ISU), like others across the nation, has seen a variety of efficiency studies, stepped-up strategic planning efforts, turnover among administrators, budget revisions, and reallocations caused by a state budget deficit.

Iowa State University has felt the impact of increasing budget pressures and changing expectations. State appropriations decreased by $1.25 million in an 18-month period. If recent funding trends continue, ISU Extension could cease to be a viable organization by the year 2007. ISU Extension reduced its state and federally funded professional and scientific staff by 143 positions (24%) during the past six years. The attrition strategy used to deal with the reduction has begun to damage staffing patterns. In addition, a change in the structure and election procedures of Iowa county Extension councils created a shared management relationship between the councils and ISU Extension, which must be strengthened and refined.

The Extension System faces significant challenges. A society in flux requires Extension be flexible enough to meet changing needs. Rapid changes in technology also require Extension to invest in and take advantage of modern information and communication tools and resources. Extension can no longer claim to be "the only game in town." We must strengthen ties with other service providers and do a better job of communicating our efforts and services to clients. Extension must meet these challenges or be overcome by them. As a result, ISU Extension has changed the way it does business by adopting the principles of Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) and adapting those principles to meet the needs of the organization and its clients.

Continuous Process Improvement is one component of the total quality management philosophy.1 CPI is a problem-solving and problem-prevention system that empowers natural work teams. It involves using a set of tools to diagram and simplify the elements in any work-flow process. Then, those elements are arranged logically, focusing on and simplifying the critical elements and eliminating those that add no value.2 By providing a means of analyzing and improving hundreds and thousands of elements within a work-flow process, CPI helps work groups achieve revolutionary improvements, one step at a time. The tools used to analyze a work-flow process vary.3 Among those tools ISU Extension faculty have found to be most useful are:

1. Brainstorming and story boarding-used to stimulate thought and display ideas for the group to view and consider. An open, supportive environment is essential.
2. Affinitizing (grouping)-used to organize large numbers of ideas, opinions, issues, etc. generated by a brainstorming process. The groups are based on "natural" relationships among the items.
3. Root cause analysis or tree diagramming-used to systematically map the full range of perceived causes and potential solutions for a particular problem. The steps include stating the problem, brainstorming about probable causes, applying the "five Ms" (mind power, machines, materials, methods, or measurements), restating the problem, brainstorming about potential solutions, and selecting the best solution.
4. Process mapping-used to picture the step-by-step procedures used in doing work. It involves identifying the steps, events, and operations of a service when it's provided to any internal or external client. Process mapping helps work teams identify the nonvalue-adding steps in any work process and the causes for delays, such as review, rerouting, revising, or reworking.
5. Developing a prioritization matrix-helps individuals and small groups identify the solutions that have the greatest potential to solve the most problems.
6. Developing an action plan-requires the group or individual to record and track the steps necessary to implement the process improvement plan. It includes what action the team intends to take, who is responsible, when the action will occur, where it will be, and why the action is being applied.

These tools have proven their worth not only in simplifying work processes, but in providing a way to put the process down on paper for all to see and understand.

Before the use of CPI, planning for ISU Extension staff development was based each year mostly on "gut-level" reactions to the training and development needs of faculty and staff. The plan generally culminated with an evaluation of the quality of the inservice instruction (see Figure 1). The use of the CPI tools enabled the Extension Human Resources Development faculty to design what it envisioned to be a more responsible and responsive process, based on faculty and staff needs (see Figure 2). The new planning process includes a more thorough analysis of clientele needs, an analysis of Extension's ability to deliver those needs, and a more thorough evaluation of how well those needs are being met. Perhaps most importantly, there's no culmination to the planning. Instead, planning is continual, cycling back through the process to clientele needs assessment.

Figure 1. Old staff development process (inservice).

Figure 2. New staff development process (inservice).

In addition to creating a new staff development model, the human resources unit used CPI tools to develop and produce CPI training materials in just two weeks. The Extension communications unit has also used CPI to streamline the weekly mailing process. The tools also played an integral role in ISU Extension's reorganization by helping planners redraw administrative boundaries, develop schedules, determine subject- matter mix, and write position descriptions. Interest in CPI has spread to non-Extension units within ISU as the university community begins to consider the potential that CPI's tools have to improve and streamline work procedures.

CPI methods have also been used to improve Extension procedures in the field as well as help clientele groups:

• A county Extension office analyzed its mailing practices from the post office's point of view. The office staff used CPI to determine and meet the post office's needs, and trimmed mailing costs by $405 in the bargain.
• Extension staff used CPI and involved elected officials to develop a county recycling program.
• Staff in several county offices have developed or improved checkout procedures for 4-H materials through CPI.
• County staff used CPI to develop a filing system understood by everyone in the office.
• Extension used CPI with six other service agencies to develop a systematic way of meeting the needs of local parenting groups by defining the agencies designing a coordinated system.
• Staff used CPI to analyze the uses of electronic mail within a county office. The CPI analysis helped staff target problem areas that resulted in increased electronic accessibility and use.

By the end of 1992, almost all of ISU Extension's 1,200 faculty, professional staff, and support staff on campus and in the field had been trained to use the CPI tools. To our knowledge, this is the first time that all ISU Extension staff have received exactly the same training. Staff were trained in a "cascade" fashion, which began with a two-day training conference for ISU Extension area directors, campus administrators, and the human resources unit. These "students," in turn, became the "teachers" for their staffs, and so on. Training expenses (aside from staff time) have included reference materials, room rentals, honoraria for consultants, and production of a CPI facilitator's guide.

Continuous process improvement realizes its true potential only when staff move beyond using it as merely a set of tools. The real power of CPI is realized as the organizational culture changes to recognize and, in fact, expect the creative and proactive behavior developed by staff through CPI. Robson, in Continuous Process Improvement, said:

I expect you to spend forty or more hours a week on the process because it must become the way you do your job. It can't be something extra to do. It must become the way you think and act every day. It must become such a part of what you do and how you do it that eventually you will be doing it without talking about it.3

Few Extension organizations enjoy a culture that consistently encourages creativity and risk-taking, particularly in these troubled times. Passing along the tools for change is simply a matter of training, but remaking an organization's culture into one of trust and security, while undergoing a massive reorganization, goes far beyond tools and techniques. Part of the CPI process builds a climate of trust through a set of ground rules that include the following: be open, be supportive and noncritical, be positive, be willing to share your thoughts and feelings, and no finger pointing. Without these ground rules, CPI can quickly deteriorate into just one more set of terms that is more fad than foundation, and the organization soon returns to "business as usual."

With the combination of analysis and trust incorporated in CPI, Iowa State staff have come to believe we can create a new way of working and that "business as usual" will some day be a compliment rather than a critique. Already the change is taking place, one step at a time.

1. Most of the literature agrees that total quality management includes three major components: managerial buy-in, teamwork, and continuous process improvement. For more discussion of this topic, see Joseph R. Jablonski, Implementing Total Quality Management (San Diego: Pfeiffer and Co., 1991).

2. Dan Ciampa, Total Quality: A User's Guide for Implementation (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison Wesley Co., 1992).

3. George D. Robson, Continuous Process Improvement: Simplifying Work Flow Systems (New York: The Free Press, 1991).

Figure 1. Old staff development process (inservice).

Figure 2. New staff development process (inservice).