Process 101

It's just after 6pm and I am beat. Literally wiped out. Anyone who has ever taught or facilitated a workshop knows how tiring it is - you have to be "on" all the time, supplying energy if the class gets tired, taking all suggestions and ideas and comments and turning them into helpful points for the class, etc etc etc. And I had an incredibly engaged class today, so it was go go go from 8:30 right through to 5.

I don't know what I was thinking when I figured that the two tea breaks (30 mins each) and lunch break (60 mins) would give me oodles of time to relax during the day. At each break the participants were eager to pick my brain on all sorts of process-related items, as well as talk about things that had nothing to do with process and were more about just getting the job done within the confines of the Public Services.

I was interested to note that many of their concerns were identical to ours:

• what do you do if you want to work on something but it isn't the current priority of the government and there is no money


• what do you do if you make recommendations and people say they will implement them and they don't


• how do you get stakeholders to support your project


• how do you decide what to do first from dozens and dozens of ideas

At lunchtime we had such a deep discussion that I left almost overwhelmed with the depth and breadth of the issues the members of the UPS are facing on a daily basis, and I wondered if my little workshop was actually having any real impact.

In the afternoon, however, I had a shining moment when I thought that just possibly I WAS having an impact. I had just finished teaching a particularly complex tool, and I used an example that was a little difficult for folks here to relate to: the process for taxi dispatchers in getting cabs to customers as quickly as possible. There is no such thing here as a dispatcher, there are only taxi stands, and so the concept was a little difficult for some participants to apply.

Most of the class took the opportunity to understand this process, and some had travelled widely enough that they knew what I was trying to portray. One group, however, was really struggling, but instead of throwing in the towel, they decided to use the tool and apply it to a real example of a similar problem here in Kampala (the process for booking operating theatres in hospitals). I thought it was brilliant - they were already applying a tool and finding it useful! They ended up being a real ambassador for the tool to the rest of the class.

And so now I have sent the class away with homework, and they have tomorrow to prepare for Day 2, which is on Thursday. (Tomorrow is a national Public holiday.) I think they will do very well and I am anxious to see what they come back with!

In the meantime, I'm heading to the spa. :)