Secretaries' Innovation Group
Conference Materials: Improving Operations - Efficiency and Effectiveness
**To view power point presentations and supporting materials, click on * bold, underlined title.
The Trump Administration - June 2025
* How States Can Align Medicaid with Self-Sufficiency
Steve Bella, Senior Advisor, Better Health Better Pay
How Secretaries Can Use RFPs, Budgets and Grants to Scale Effective Programs - June 2025
* How Secretaries Can Use RFPs to Scale Effective Programs
Lisa Morrison Butler, Executive VP/ Chief Impact Officer, Results for America & former Commissioner, Chicago Dept. of Family & Support Services
Patrick Carter, Vice President and State Practice Lead, Results for America
- Information about successful programs and models are obtained from feedback, sometimes RCTs and many other means. But how to institutionalize the reach for program effectiveness is an ongoing issue - - for example where the program operations are carried out by counties or of private vendors outside of direct state control. Chicago’s former family commissioner will explain the process of growing a successful proven voluntary healthy family program from a hundred to cover thousands. Ohio’s OMB director will show how they institutionalized more effective program delivery through budgets and grants.
How to Get Breakthrough Results with Less Money, Less Change, and More Focus - June 2025
* Rewiring Leadership Around the Right Signal
Kristen Cox, Founder / CEO, Epiphany Associates
- Without a focusing framework, leaders struggle to know which problems to ignore, which ones matter, and which problem is the source of everything else they’re reacting to. Among SIG states that have introduced the “Theory of Constraints” to reduce waste and improve operations - - Florida increased the timeliness of UI enrollment from 65% to 93% over four months; Missouri reduced its backlog of child welfare investigations from over 700 to zero over 8 months; and ND completed its child care fingerprint background checks to 80% within three days after improvements. This presentation will introduce a simple framework that guarantees results by focusing on the right problems - - with less change, fewer resources, and a clearer path forward.
Introduction to the Cicero Institute - July 2024
* SIG – Introduction and Overview
The Cicero Institute is a nonpartisan public policy organization with deep experience in government which encompasses legislation and the law, technology, and entrepreneurship. It helps develop and fight for policies at the state level that restore liberty, accountability, and innovation in American governance.
Our presenter is a former SIG secretary, Adam Meier from KY. Our discussion will include how to partner with this conservative lobbying group to advance our Governor’s objectives in the state legislatures.
Utah's Theory of Constraints Continues to Produce Big Results in SIG States - December 2019
* Thinking Clearly
Kristin Cox, Executive Director, Utah Office of Management and Budget
* Social Services Redesign
Sara Stolt, Transformation Manager, North Dakota Department of Human Services
* Theory of Constraints Continuous Improvement Project
Steve Corsi, former Secretary, Missouri Department of Social Services
- Kristen Cox has brought Utah’s pre-eminent management effectiveness system, Theory of Constraints to several SIG states over the past few years with big impacts. States include TX, FL, OH, MO, WY and now ND. Now former MO secretary and SIG member Steve Corsi, and ND transformation manager Sara Stolt will describe their remarkable cost reduction and performance achievements using the Utah system. TOC includes these characteristics: no budget increases, no system upgrades, no added staff, and no new training. Kristen will describe how the Utah model can be brought into any SIG state, and the two secretaries will describe how these results were achieved.
Six Sigma or Lean May Not Be the Best Systems for Government Management Improvement: The Theory of Constraints (TOC) May Be More Adaptable - July 2017
* Theory of Constraints: 1O1
Kristen Cox, Executive Director, Utah Governor's Office Management and Budget
- When FL SIG member Cissy Proctor called upon Utah to import its management effectiveness approach called Theory of Constraints (TOC), its implementation applied to Florida’s UI program resulted in an increase in UI on-time payments of twenty percentage points, from the high 60s to the high 80s, in a period of just months. Utah OMB director Kristen Cox will show how this management efficiency and effectiveness system is being used across program areas in her state to decrease costs and improve outcomes.
Theory of Constraints - June 2015
* Operational Excellence in Utah Government
Steve Cuthbert, Deputy Director, Utah Governor's Office of Excellence
- Steve will describe two Utah human services projects which achieved very high impacts on throughput and expenditure reductions.
November 2014
* The Utah SUCCESS Initiative and the New Mexico Project
Greg Gardner, Operational Excellence Director, Utah Governor's Office of Management and Budget
- Improving New Mexico’s call center operations through the implementation of Theory of Constraints
Theory of Constraints - June 2014
* Better, Faster, Cheaper State Government
Kristen Cox, Executive Director, Utah Governor's Office of Management and Budget
* Rapid Process Improvement at TWC
Larry Temple, Executive Director, Texas Workforce Commission
Alfredo Mycue, Director of Business Transformation / Rapid Process Improvement, Texas Workforce Commission
- The Government Efficiency Exemption Policy - - bringing modern management advances into dark places.
- Utah - - Applications UP 48%; FTEs DOWN 29%
- Texas RFP days from idea to publish DOWN by two thirds. Bonus - How to shame a government lawyer into approving an RFP draft within 48 hours.