What Happened?
The city of Denver launched an innovation training program to help city employees identify areas of inefficiency within the local government and develop programs to reduce the waste and increase sustainability. The Peak Academy program is predicted to save Denver $10 million each year with more efficient practices.
The Goal
The New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and the Center for an Urban Future featured Denver’s Peak Academy in a recent report introducing innovative ideas being tested by municipalities across the country. The Peak Academy program aims to encourage city leaders brainstorm new ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government services, as well as gain support for new practices.
The model calls for participants to take a five-day training to acquire performance measurement skills and learn how to implement strategies for continuous improvements. Once they have graduated from the academy, the public employees will be sought after by supervisors and government agency heads looking to increase efficiency and collaborate no new ideas. Peak Academy will act as a formal training program to help thought leaders have their concepts heard and implemented faster.
How It Works
Staffed by two analysts from the city’s budget office, Denver’s Peak Academy does not generate extra costs. All participants are introduced to strategies and approaches to cutting costs while increasing effectiveness. All ideas developed in the program should then be taken back to students’ agencies and presented to managers. The academy helps streamline government brainstorming so strategies can be coordinated throughout the city. Courses focus on:
- Economic Sustainability
- Public Safety
- Public Welfare
- Youth Services
- Energy Efficiency
- Quality of Service
- Public Employee Performance
The academy provides participants with tools to identify where agencies are underperforming or wasting resources, and how best to develop solutions for short and long-term improvements. The problem-solving process includes:
- Identifying the problem
- Outlining agency workflow
- Pinpointing where waste occurs in workflow
- Listing of possible causes of the problem
- Questioning of processes
- Proposing of helpful changes
- Preventing repeat or new mistakes
- Testing possible outcomes
- Implementing solutions
The academy is intended to provide on-going learning and training opportunities for continual discussions on how to improve current process.
Sydney Seeks Outside Guidance
The city of Sydney recently teamed up with Exergy Australia to take advantage of the organization’s energy experts to determine where costs can be cut. After identifying problem areas and implementing city-wide energy efficiency measures, Sydney has reduced government building energy use by 20 percent. By demonstrating the financial impact of greener energy strategies, city officials hope the effort will trickle down into the public sector throughout Sydney.
The government plans to continue working with Exergy to calculate how much savings could be achieved by building owners and tenants throughout the city. Once residents understand where infrastructure is wasting energy they can implement retrofits to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase savings. Sydney has already generated $880,000 in electricity bill cuts by upgrading lighting and air condition, improving power management systems on computers and installing movement sensors.
Green Moves
Gov1 has reported on similar initiatives to increase city efficiency such as trash conversion and incentives for green technology implementation.