Quality activists learn, laugh at July 31 Pathways to Excellence event

Throughout the day, more than 200 bargaining unit and exempt employees were actively involved in learning. And, the smiles on their faces seem to indicate that participants had a good time, too.

Photo Album of Event... OCSEA Photo Gallery...

Aug. 5, 2008 - State employees who packed the OCSEA Union Hall for the July 31, 2008, Pathways to Excellence learned about new quality tools... and laughed often in the process. Just look at the union's photo album gallery for proof.

This Ohio Quality Network event offered a day filled with interesting speakers and engaging workshops featuring presentations on project management, team sponsorship, and Agency Review Teams.

ART members are charged with considering all recommendations submitted through the Employee and Stakeholder Suggestion Program and determining viability of each submission. Each labor-management ART committee has eight to 10 members.

Keynote speaker Scott Hinton, Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission, presented "True Colors" in which he gave participants tools to identify their own personality traits, understand other types, and learn how these attributes may impact team or workplace dynamics. True Colors is a simple model of personality identification for people of all ages that improves communication through recognition of a person's true character.

Dave Wirick, a visiting scholar at John Glenn School of Public Affairs, delivered the plenary address, "Project management and process improvement: To be successful you can't have one without the other." He also led an afternoon workshop called, "Building an effective project plan for process improvement."

He explained that a process improvement initiative, which is by definition a project, requires a project plan. It must ensure consensus on the goals of the project, identifies the scope of the initiative, builds a schedule, identifies resources needed, and manages risk.

Other workshops included:

Agency Review Teams: The Employee Feedback Program and How to Make Your Suggestion Count delivered by OCSEA's Sandy Trout and DAS's Steve Wall.

Ensuring Team Success: How to be a successful team sponsor delivered by Art Flesch and Donna Hunt.

Four state employees talked about their experience with a Kaizen process improvement project, where all of the correct stakeholders are represented on the team, the work is done in as little as one week, and its recommendations are implemented almost immediately.

On hand to describe their Kaizen experiences were: Joy Bush, Executive Director of Employer Management Services; Sheryl Thorne and Jill Whitworth, members of the BWC Kaizen Team; and Steve Wall, DAS.

See Related

Keynote Presentation: True Colors by Scott Hinton (PDF)

Keynote Resource: Word Clusters (PDF)

Workshop Presentation: Agency Review Teams, by Sandy Trout and Steve Wall (PDF)

Photo Album of Event...

OCSEA members represent union interests on Agency Review Teams