Mid-Term Assignment

This is the mid-term assignment.  

You have just been named to be the leader of a home health care agency.  The agency employs 35 registered nurses, 3 intake agents, a receptionist/administrative assistant and an office manager.  The previous leader led the agency for the past 25 years making very few changes - she was happy with the status quo.  Upon assuming your leadership role you notice several alarming issues:

1.  The culture of the organization is very set in its ways.  Employees do not feel empowered and there is little to no communication among the staff and virtually no accountability.

2. It takes one nurse to complete 10 different forms all completed manually to admit a new person for services.

3. In the office, you see work accumulating in physical in-boxes, and you see excessive amounts of physical files accumulating on desks and tables.  You also see documents waiting for signatures and the real reason for the needed signatures is not known.  Staff are constantly walking around, copying, filing, and searching for materials and information. 

4. Information is often entered on the forms incorrectly leading to work being passed on that is incomplete, incorrect, or requires clarification.

Utilizing your understanding of Agile Lean thinking, principles, tools, and techniques that have been discussed so far in the course, please describe one step or action that you, as the Agile Lean leader, would take in your transformation effort in addressing items 1 through 4.

Your answer to each of the four items above should incorporate the following information:

1. The specific action step you would take.

2. Explain why you selected this specific action and what you expect it to accomplish.

3. Explain how would you, as the leader, would gain staff buy-in. 

4. What specific tool or technique would you use in addressing the item?  Explain why you selected this tool or technique.

Please note there is no minimum or maximum number of pages associated with this mid-term exam.  You are to answer each item completely using the information discussed throughout this portion of the course.