Taupo District Council has three main towns, Taupo, Turangi and Mangakino.Population is 32,500 (Taupo town 22,000). Taupo town is nestled on the shores of Great Lake Taupo from which the mighty Waikato River flows.

1. CASE STUDY
TAUPO DISTRICT COUNCIL
smarter processes www.promapp.com
Taupo District Council has three main
towns, Taupo, Turangi and Mangakino.
Population is 32,500 (Taupo town
22,000). Taupo town is nestled on the
shores of Great Lake Taupo from which
the mighty Waikato River flows.
www.taupodc.govt.nz
Local Council sees the forest and
the trees
Improving council processes is all about understanding how you work today, and
figuring out ways of doing it better tomorrow. This is why district councils with
effective process management systems are able to adapt to legislative changes
and respond quicker to ratepayers than those that don't.
Keeping it simple
According to Jamie Dale, Total Quality Manager for Taupo District Council, the key
to successful process management is "keeping it simple."
"Life in a local government bureaucracy is inherently complex enough without
another layer of complexity being introduced in the form of messy processes and
procedures."
The only problem with this, according to Dale, is that because many council
processes involve a large number of rules, decisions, systems and inputs from
different teams, they are perceived to be highly complex. He believes that this
perception of complexity can form a barrier to staff effectively understanding,
documenting and improving council processes.
For this reason, Dale tackled the building consent process for Taupo District
Council – historically considered amongst the most complex of the council's
processes – with a radical idea. He started from the point of view that the process
is simple.
Dale and his team began by using Promapp process management software to
help them break down the ‘mega' consent process into smaller, more
manageable chunks. The software allowed Dale and his team to describe the
consent process as "one end-to-end flow" so teams could understand the context
of where they fit into the bigger picture. This method of process mapping allowed
staff members to see the forest and the trees – a key to process management
success.

2. CASE STUDY
TAUPO DISTRICT COUNCIL
smarter processes www.promapp.com
"'Simple' and 'software' are
not two words usually used in
the same sentence, but the
Promapp system is so easy to
use that employees can
literally be trained on it in half
an hour."
Jamie Dale, TAUPO DISTRICT
COUNCIL
"When problems with processes are encountered," Dale says, "they are invariably
caused by individuals diving straight into the detail and working outwards and
upwards rather than looking at the big picture."
Using process management software
Dale attributes much of the council's success with process management (to date
they have mapped 155 processes) to their use of Promapp.
"We had a number of process management software companies come and do
presentations for us," Dale says, "but in the end we went with Promapp because
the software did what we needed it to do and – most importantly – it is intuitive
and simple to use."
"Simple" and "software" are not two words usually used in the same sentence, but
Dale says the system is so easy to use that employees can literally be trained on it
in half an hour.
This is why Promapp training sessions focus more on the methodology of process
mapping than they do on operating the software itself.
The advice Promapp trainers offer to staff is simple: Give your process map the
"whiteboard test." If the process appears more complex than what you would
draw on a whiteboard to explain it to a new staff member, then there may be too
much information.
Getting staff on board with process management
"I worked as a process management consultant for 10 years before starting
Promapp in 2003," says Ivan Seselj, director of Promapp Solutions Ltd.
"I've been involved in big process improvement projects for companies like Air
New Zealand and British Airways, and almost without exception we would come
back a few years later and no one was referring to the processes we had
developed. I knew if process management software was ever going to work it had
to be simple and easy for staff to use on a regular basis."
Seselj says people often go into Promapp training sessions thinking: "Processes?
Too hard," but that focusing on simple methodologies behind process mapping
means staff can leave thinking: "I can actually do this."
This is what Sue Milner from Far North District Council (FNDC) found when her
team began using Promapp to organize their records management system.
Milner says Promapp provides the FNDC Records Management System Project
with "a single repository for processes which is easy to access" and allows staff to
print off process paperwork "in a user friendly format for review, confirmation and
sign-off." The fact that Promapp is "easy for people to use" means Sue and her
team "saved considerable time in training staff and pulling together our
processes."
What Dale and Milner have proven is that when process management software is
easy to use – staff will use it.
Dale says Taupo DC staff members want to use the Promapp system and that
they are the ones driving its implementation.
"The staff now have ownership of their processes and responsibility for keeping
them up to date," he says.
"Mapping procedures and keeping them up to date is now very much a part of
what we do."