Norm Fowler receives Commendation from Key West

 On June 2, 2009 Keys Six Sigma's President Norm Fowler received a special commendation from the Key West, Florida for his volunteer work in leading the process mapping of the City's Planning and Building process.  Working with the City Manager, Planning Department and other impacted department heads, Norm facilitated the capturing, optimizing and characterizing each process step from starting with a development idea to issuance of a Certificate of Occupancy.  City Planner Amy Kimball-Murley said "We wanted to reduce the amount of time and energy that each individual has to go through in this process." 

The output from the six month process mapping project was presented at the June 2nd Key West Commission meeting.  Those involved in the process mapping project were initially somewhat surprised at the complexity of the overall process.  Like in many situations, people tended to know their specific portion of the overall process, but very little about steps either side of their portion. 

 An early challenge was finding a way to balance with wide range of building process scope (from repairing a fence to extensive affordable housing projects) and overall process complexity.  One breakthrough developed by Norm was a graphical way to simplify the overall complex process and putting the high level process on one page.  With the high level process on one page, a customized "project approval roadmap" could be created by sitting with a planner, describing the scope of the project and then literally crossing off process steps that would not be applicable for that particular project.

In addressing the Commissioners and those attending the meeting, Norm indicated that he hoped that this project could become a template for other volunteer projects aimed at helping Key West.

 

Photos

Norm receiving the commendation from Mayor Morgan McPherson.

The Key West Commendation