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2018 09 27 WS MinutesMINUTES OF THE REGULAR WORK SESSION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BAYTOWN SEPTEMBER 27, 2018 The City Council of the City of Baytown, Texas met in a Regular Work Session on Thursday, September 27, 2018, at 5:16 P.M., in the Innovation Room of the Sterling Municipal Library, One Elizabeth Wilbanks Avenue, Baytown, Texas 77520, with the following in attendance: Laura Alvarado Council Member Robert Hoskins Council Member Charles Johnson Mayor Pro Tem David Himsel Council Member Chris Presley Council Member Heather Betancourth Council Member Stephen DonCarlos Mayor Rick Davis City Manager Ignacio Ramirez City Attorney Leticia Brysch City Clerk Mayor DonCarlos convened the September 27, 2018, City Council Regular Work Session with a quorum present at 5:16 P.M., all members were present with the exception of Council Member Presley who was absent and Council Member Hoskins who arrived at 5:28 P.M. 1. DISCUSSIONS a. Receive and discuss a presentation regarding the status of the City's Emergency Management Division. Showcase the City's Innovation Room and PIPE Academy Accomplishments. Director of Strategic Initiatives Nick Woolery welcomed the Council and staff members to the PIPE Academy Open House in the City's new Innovation Room. Mr. Woolery noted that this new space is a part of the City's PIPE Academy, and will be used to continue the training and process improvement processes for the City and for other interested agencies; such as Lee College, GCCISD, etc. Mr. Woolery noted that before going too far into the PIPE Academy, he wanted to start with the why. He quoted a comedian that stated in part, "When you know your "why" your "what" has more impact because you are walking in or towards your purpose." He further noted that the "why" of the PIPE Academy falls back to Ken Miller's book "Extreme Government Makeover" which states that "The work of the government is noble, the people of government are amazing, the systems of government are a mess." Mr. Woolery noted that city staff has a noble purpose in what they do, but many times it is the overly complicated processes that cause disillusionment in the work and bogs down processes. The core belief of PIPE or Process Improvement and People Empowerment is to deal with processes and people. As it relates to processes, the goal is to make the unseen seen, in other words, the "pipes" or processes of government are poorly laid out, with many unnecessary twists and turns, PIPE aims to expose and straighten the pipes by examining and streamlining City processes. People are the City's most important City Council Regular Work Session Minutes September 27, 2018 Page 2 of 3 asset and PIPE focuses on eliminating moldy thinking or the false perception that public employees are not sufficiently motivated, skilled or accomplished by empowering employees to master their craft, have autonomous thinking and find their noble purpose. Mr. Woolery stated that process improvement is the continuous improvement methodology; it is free; driven by the people who do the work; and continued investment in fellow employees, but mostly it is giving everyone a set of tools that will help staff see waste and then fix it. Mr. Woolery then outlined the PIPE academy's roadmap to systematically identify and solve problems - DMAIC: D - Define the problem M - Measure and quantify the problem A - Analyze and identify the cause of the problem I - Improve and implement solutions C - Control and maintain solutions. Mr. Woolery warned against the DI disease, which is the inclination to jump to a solution without really understanding the problem. He noted that this may solve some aspects of the problem, but unless a person stops to analyze the problem in detail; i.e. from the beginning to the end, the solution may not encompass all of the problems. Mr. Woolery then noted that since the creation of the PIPE Academy that includes Green Belt and Black Belt training, the Academy has trained 250 employees, had 74 projects for improvements submitted that resulted in hard dollar savings of an estimated $215,177.43 and $307,876.16 in soft costs savings. Mr. Woolery noted that the Academy has been so successful because of the City's core values that include caring, innovation, collaboration, leadership and stewardship that support the Academy's focus on process improvement, people empowerment and excellent services to our community. Mr. Woolery noted that the next steps for the Academy are to continue Green and Black belt training, open the academy to community partners, begin specialized training in 2019, expand BaytownYou and continue the work on major organization projects such as the hiring and on -boarding processes and the development and permitting processes. Assistant Fire Chief Dana Dalbey presented an overview of process improvements in the Fire Department that increased efficiencies and had immediate costs savings. Chuck Jennings from the Parks and Recreation Department gave the Council an overview of their process improvement at the Park Service Center that has reduced the prep time for crews in the morning and increased organization and staff effectiveness. City Librarian Jamie Eustace presented information regarding the main training concepts presented during the BaytownYou Green Belt and Black Belt trainings. One of the main concepts revolves around pain points for the customers and staff, these include: work not being pushed downstream in a timely manner, over processing of application forms, irrelevant or duplicate information on forms, bottlenecks in the approval process, to name a few. Ms. Eustace also noted that in conducting the process improvement process, staff is given tools and a common language that helps them identify these pain points throughout the entire process in order to find the best and most comprehensive solutions to the issues. She further noted that in her experience many times she has started a process thinking that the problem with the City Council Regular Work Session Minutes September 27, 2018 Page 3 of 3 process is "x" when it really ends up being "y", which makes the knowing of the "why" of pain point in a process so critical because it helps define the issues. Ms. Eustace explained the importance of knowing the MEAT (money, errors, amount and time) of any process improvement, in order to have the necessary metrics to measure whether or not the improvements are working. Ms. Eustace walked the Council through a process improvement model to show the analyze portion of the process improvement process, which focuses making the invisible - visible; followed by the verification process to ensure that the new process eliminates the pain points and ending with the MEAT. Ms. Eustace noted that staff members from different departments are coming together to work on different aspects of the development process and noted that they used five categories to help guide their improvement efforts, and they are to: Create more clarity on the front-end of the development and permitting process, 2. Reduce time it takes to get through the process, Improve staff accountability and customer service; 4. Improve communication between internal and external customers and stakeholders; and Intentional long-range planning. Ms. Eustace noted that since the staff began the process improvements to portions of the development process the residential driveway replacement permit went from an average of 17 days to process to 1 day; and the permitting process for new residential structures in the newer neighborhoods have changed as follows: 2015: 30-45 days, 2017: 30 days, 2018: 6-10 days; and currently with the new Utility Service Request (USR) policy the new residential permits are reviewed within 5-6 days. She further noted that these improvements are huge wins for the organization and they are only the beginning as the staff hopes to continue expanding this training and improvements. City Manager Rick Davis thanked the BaytownYou faculty for making the PIPE Academy such a success. b. Discuss any or all of the agenda items on the City Council Regular Meeting Agenda for September 27, 2018, which is attached below. This item was not discussed. 2. ADJOURN With there being no further business to discuss, Mayor DonCarlos adjourned the September 27, 2018 City Cou it Regular Work Session at 6:08 P.M. Leticia Brysch, Cit erk City of Baytown Wr ,A