“I Borrowed It!”: Borrowing this checklist reduces contractor hiring process from two months to two weeks
By Kailyn Haskovec, Process Improvement & Change Management Intern
June 30, 2020
Recently, Gabriel Cosyleon, a Regional Environmental Manager in Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT)’s Southeast Colorado Region (“Region 2”), discovered Jessica Myklebust’s, Deputy Director for Program Delivery for CDOT’s Denver/Metro Region (“Region 1”), Lean Everyday Idea (LEI) which was implement in March of this year.
The improvement that Jessica implemented addressed delays in the process of hiring outside contractors to environmental work for CDOT. She created a checklist to make working with contractors easier, which addresses CDOT’s values of customer service and excellence. It provides a guide for the necessary documentation that CDOT requires of them. Previously, the process of hiring a contractor could be confusing, time-consuming and could take months. With this “shopping cart” checklist for necessary requirements in SAP (a CDOT computer system), it reduced the processing time from month to just two weeks. This innovation improves internal and external customer service, and saves CDOT time and money.
A copy of the LEI Checklist, which can also be found on our LEI Idea Cards Page.
Jessica created the checklist with the help of her team after attending the Simple SOLVE training, an introduction to process improvement sponsored by the Governor's Office of Operations. Through a process mapping exercise, the team identified areas of waste and created a more efficient system that reduced the time by months.
However, this innovation wasn’t meant to be used in isolation in Region 1. Gabriel Cosyleon from CDOT’s Southeast Colorado Region (“Region 2”) saw the benefits of using this as well. He mentions that oftentimes in procurement, there are many different documents and requirements necessary and it can be redundant and time consuming to create and submit them. However, with this checklist, environmental staff can be sure they have completed all necessary steps. He states, “I'm always missing half of the story or half of the requirements, so I think this is going to be very helpful at least cutting down some of the cat-and-mouse chase of what we actually really need”.
This isn’t the only great idea we are working to spread around the state. Currently, there are 343 Idea Cards available on CDOT’s website ready for replication. The Office of Process Improvement (OPI) encourages both CDOT employees and other transportation professionals to put these ideas to use. In the same respect that Gabriel was able to enhance operations in Region 2 stemming from Jessica’s idea in HQ, these ideas are worth spreading and trying yourself! Take a look through OPI’s catalogue and make an improvement within your work today.