A fresh set of eyes can often solve an old problem.

New staff bring fantastic energy mixed with their new ideas and are a breeding ground for change. Often their ideas seem like a huge course adjustment but based on the history of the organization or attempts in the past it really is a small but important move that might save a few seconds of staff time. Those few seconds are minor but when multiplied out over years it can add up to a meaningful productivity enhancement. One of those minor change moments was recently presented to us and we have been thinking through ever since.

The idea initially seemed like a major change: We want a dashboard showing charts and graphs of revenue tied to FTE (staffing hours) information. The individual seemed confident we should be able to just buy a dashboard program for a few thousand, install it and the problem would be solved. Of course, it is never that easy. Charts and graphs are relatively simple and we have a half dozen ways we could do that in short time including using SSRS, ASP, .Net or just connecting Excel to the data directly. The revenue data was already available on our SQL Server tied to departments and staff. So, what was the hang-up? That dreaded FTE staffing information. As it turns out, we had been struggling on that issue for half a year. The dashboard graphing was cake but getting missing data seemed like a dilemma.

When approaching any problem the first question you have to ask is: What is the solution worth to you? In this case, we were chatting with the Chief Financial Officer so this was a question right up his alley. Every hurdle can be jumped but knowing how valuable it is can tell us whether we are going to make our staff learn to jump it or whether we can buy a Catapult 3000 to launch us over the problem. After you have a budget in mind it allows you to go back to the root problem which is, in our case, how do we get the data so we can report on it?

The “free” solution is to continue to collect the data manually. While it does not require any products be purchased it is a time-consuming option that will require a particular individual to do the calculations perfectly every month. The slightly more accurate and “press a button for the report” approach would be to program an application separate from our human resources system on our SQL Server, but the down side here will be that information will be entered both in our application and the HR system not to mention require technical time to program it. The Catapult 3000 idea is to upgrade our main database for tracking staffing hours to one that allows our intranet reporting system to access that information directly.

We are still investigating what our reporting puzzle is worth to us but I am confident whatever option we choose to get over this hurdle will be valuable to our agency for years to come and underscore how having a fresh set of eyes can highlight minor changes that bring major improvements.

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