Greenversations

About the author: John DeLashmit began his EPA career over twenty years ago in Chicago. He spent many years working in EPA’s hazardous waste cleanup programs, and now serves as Chief of the Water Quality Management Branch in EPA’s Kansas City office.

We hear its name in the halls and meeting rooms of EPA’s regions and Headquarters: Kaizen, the Japanese process improvement tool. It literally means change (kai) to become good (zen). Kaizen is used by states, feds, and major corporations, such as the Toyota Motor Company, to stay in tune with and provide a better response to changing customer needs. Some of you may wonder what it’s like to go through an Event? Is Kaizen painful, is it dignified, how do you know when it’s over? Do you wear a gi?

I worked with our four Regional states, Headquarters, and my colleagues in the Region at a Kaizen event to “lean” our water quality standard (WQS) review and approval processes in Kansas City. Our Kaizen event took place over four full days last summer. It was quite an experience; we became more enthused about our results as the week went along. The states came armed with diagrams and detailed descriptions of their processes. The Region had no prepared and polished descriptions…we described our procedures, fraught with delay and unnecessary steps, in front of all attending. An ugly process is often described as making sausage; we made our sausage in the window of the butcher shop.

We trimmed (notice that I really like the butcher shop analogy) almost 50% of the steps we’d historically used in our WQS review process, and we eliminated nearly all of the process delays. The refined process we came up with looks much better…on paper. Now, we must implement our ideas and make them work. It’s a new way of doing things, and we realize that there’ll be some frustrations (pain?) while we work to change our old habits.

At EPA, we’re very interested in expanding the use of the Kaizen tool to eliminate waste and delay. I’ll confess…we’re suckers for anything that helps us more efficiently deal with the complexities of regulation, oversight, and our fundamental responsibility to protect the environment. Our Kansas City office will soon use Kaizen to improve our water discharge permitting processes; in the near future, you’ll hear more about Kaizen events in our other regions and Headquarters. We’ll want to share stories about our success…I’ll admit that we’re more than a little proud of what we’re doing.

Just in case my 8th grade English teacher, Miss Osborne, is reading this, I’ll close with a haiku (she would be so impressed):

Kaizen leans our ways
Set a clear course forward
Never hesitate

Read more about Kaizen.

Linked to http://epa.gov/lean/admin.htm

About the author: Barbara Hostage is the Director of the Policy Analysis and Regulatory Management Staff in the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. She has been with EPA for 30 years, spending most of those 30 years involved in EPA rulemakings.

Anyone who’s ever worked with a real estate agent knows that it helps to let them know what you want. For example, if you’re looking for a three bedroom ranch on a quiet street, you should say so, or else you’ll spend a lot of time driving to five bedroom colonials next to busy shopping malls. There are a lot of houses out there and a lot of factors to consider. The more guidance you provide, the more effective your search becomes.

It’s a simple idea: providing guidance early leads to more effective work. It’s a good rule to follow when working with a real estate agent, hair stylist, or mechanic. It’s also a principle that we try to incorporate into our work here at EPA.

I help EPA put this principle into practice by arranging Early Guidance Meetings for my office. Developing an action (such as a regulation) is a detailed process. At the beginning of the process, a workgroup that includes all relevant parts of EPA is formed. The workgroup then proceeds to investigate the topic and identify what may need to be done. It is during this early phase that an EPA workgroup will turn to EPA senior managers for guidance…hence the name “Early Guidance Meeting.” In these meetings, senior managers help the workgroup identify priorities and establish expectations. Getting senior managers involved early in the process helps the workgroup avoid missteps and dead ends, which leads to a quicker and more efficient process.

It’s a simple step, but I’m convinced that these meetings make us a better agency. Early Guidance Meetings save taxpayers’ money by minimizing the amount of time spent pursuing dead ends, documenting decisions in case we need to revisit them later on, and completing regulations in a timelier manner. It’s only logical: a better process produces better actions. And during the early phases of the process – when a workgroup is looking for some ”warmer/colder” advice to nudge them in the right direction – a little guidance can go a long way.

About the author: Tami Fordham joined EPA’s Seattle office in June 2001 and moved to Anchorage, Alaska to join the Alaska Operations Office in September 2003. Tami serves as the Alaska Resource Extraction Tribal Policy Advisor and is the Tribal Coordinator for Tribes in Western Alaska.

The last time I was visiting with my family in Washington I learned that my parents decided to start making canvas shopping bags. They were noticing plastic bags everywhere littering the streets and hanging in the trees, you may have seen this in your local area, and so decided to start making the canvas bags to sell at their local store and to their friends. I have one of their bags and when people ask who made it, I get to proudly share their story of making a difference in the environment.

I have the great honor to work in partnership with Tribal Governments in Western Alaska along the Lower Kuskokwim River. Plastic bags are often seen throughout the tundra and so many of the communities I work with have worked to ban plastic bags in their village. The environmental programs have made canvas bags available to the tribal members in the place of plastic bags. There are many people that are now taking plastic bags and crocheting them into purses and bags that can be re-used. To find out more, check out their website. Just a few weeks ago a woman all the way from Florida called our office to find out about different re-use projects that could be done because she wanted to find projects that made a difference for the environment.

One person can make a difference, just imagine if we all made one change in how we live our lives the ripple effect it would have in our world.

About the author: Molly O’Neill is EPA’s Assistant Administrator for the Office of Environmental Information and Chief Information Officer

Recently, I attended a government leadership summit that focused on collaboration. It was represented by state, local and federal leaders. I was there not just to speak but also to learn. I am always looking for ideas outside of EPA that we might take advantage of in our business. Sometimes, you see something special and it opens your eyes to future benefits.

At an evening session, I saw a demonstration of something called “Virtual Alabama”. I had been hearing the buzz around this for several weeks and it didn’t disappoint. Now, from a technology perspective this wasn’t a big deal to me. It is simply a well orchestrated Google Earth implementation from a statewide perspective. The impressive part was the incredible collaboration that occurred to bring almost all the government related information together visually. And it was at the state and local levels! In one application, the user could view environmental information, crime information, land use information, etc. all at once.

Alabama has effectively engaged a small team of people whose job it is to harvest this data and make it available to decision-makers. They are constantly consuming more data and adding new functionality. For example, universities and colleges are now sketching on the maps to show what the insides of their buildings look like. Another cool example involves historical aerial photography. After a recent tornado, officials could look at pictures of towns before and after the tornado to respond to emergencies and also to help insurance companies estimate damage. I also saw how they incorporated a tool EPA uses called “Aloha” into their application to look at toxicity dispersion modeling with just a few lines of code!

At EPA, I talk about how owning data is passé, but using it is not. There are data sources outside of EPA that are very important to our Mission and we need to access them. That’s why building partnerships to share information is so important. If one agency collects the data, technology today allows it to be shared pretty easily. Federal government needs to shift the paradigm from data owners to data collaborators and to embrace technology as the enabler.

Virtual Alabama started as a Homeland Security project that has been adopted by the entire state. I believe its success lies on the fact that there is an organization in place well adapted to constantly harvest data – a data fusion center. This is my take away from another insightful leadership summit in seeing Virtual Alabama as a best practice… something we at EPA can certainly learn from.

Since March, EPA has been reaching out to the public and specific stakeholder groups during our National Dialogue on Access to Environmental Information, and the comment session is now over. I would like to thank those who contributed their ideas during this time. I learned about great examples of information sharing, including Virtual Alabama. Check out the National Dialogue website for summaries of the stakeholder sessions and more on the upcoming strategy document that compiles what we’ve learned.

About the author: Marcus Peacock is EPA’s Deputy Administrator.

Not long after coming to EPA I was asked to meet with a new group of employees whose purpose was to help first-line supervisors “thrive, not just survive.” Having a group of people who care enough about an organization to get together on their own and figure out how to improve it is like finding a vein of gold. I was anxious to meet them.

They wanted to talk about the most pressing concerns of first-line supervisors. I didn’t know what they would put at the top of the list. I figured it might be lack of resources or training, but the first thing the group mentioned was that the agency was not doing a good job of dealing with poor performers. As they explained it, a poor performer not only affects the work of one person, but also the people around them. In some cases, one or two people can demoralize a whole office.

I have no doubt EPA can do better at dealing with poor performers, but I also think it is a myth that EPA does not already take on this sometimes difficult task. This week one of EPA’s senior managers sent out a memo that I thought did a nice job of addressing this straight up. Here it is, in shortened form:

One of the areas of concern . . . is a belief among federal employees that supervisors do not deal with conduct and performance problems. I understand why this is a common notion; such matters are handled in a highly sensitive and confidential matter. . . . I think it important that we all occasionally hear about what is done to address conduct and performance issues . . . I want to share some information with you about disciplinary actions which have been taken . . . over the last few years.
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We are public servants, and as such, we each have a personal responsibility to maintain levels of behavior and performance that conform to the highest ethical standards and which promote the best interests of EPA and the federal government . . . . I expect each manager and supervisor to take appropriate disciplinary and performance actions when necessary. We practice progressive discipline, which means that we try to give employees as many opportunities as possible to correct behavior or improve performance.
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[E]mployees have been reprimanded and/or suspended for conduct relating to misuse of Agency equipment, e.g., inappropriate internet use. Employees have also been disciplined, including suspension or proposed removal, for misusing official authority or information for personal gain. Discipline has been taken for inappropriate use of the government credit card or failure to pay the bill after having been reimbursed. Attendance-related problems and/or failure to follow leave procedures have lead to discipline, including reprimand, suspension, and removal. Employees have been disciplined for what I would generally call unprofessional behavior . . . . Finally, discipline is not limited to staff. Some supervisors have found themselves subject to discipline for misconduct.

I thought it important for you to know that the myth that nothing ever happens to employees with conduct and/or performance problems is just that, a myth. Let me assure you that supervisors do not seek out opportunities to take disciplinary actions . . . . Addressing conduct and performance issues is ongoing; we are focusing time and effort to further address conduct challenges and there is room for improvement. I expect supervisors to continue to attend to this critical element of their jobs. Our mission is too important and our resources too limited to do anything else.