What? Time to Go Already?

I almost had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the hotel and into the van bound for the airport at Entebbe.

Ok, not really. After all, I'm headed to London for a few days, and London is my favourite city in the world. But I am NOT, in ANY way, ready to leave this beautiful country and wonderful people. There is still so much to see and do, and today I really got into the swing of things with my class. I had about 45 minutes after class to change, do a final packing, and grab a bite to eat at the bar. My farewells of Cathie, Michael, Ather and Russ were very rushed, and I am only now sitting in the airport in Entebbe awaiting my overnight flight to Brussels.

But let me tell you about my day.

My friend and colleague Larry is a teacher and he commented a while ago about about how amazing it is, as a teacher, to realize that your students "get it" and that you're making a difference. Today that happened to me over and over again, and the 9 hours of class time went by in a flash.

If you have been keeping up with all the blog entries, you may recall that on Tuesday I had a moment or two of self doubt - there is so much to be done here, so much frustration on the part of really good people who want to make a difference and don't know where to start, and such pleading in their face as they ask for help. I wondered if there was anything that my little 2-day workshop could possibly do to help out.

Today my intent was to do a bit of review, and then use most of the day to apply the tools that I taught to real-life practical examples that they brought with them. Well, what is it they say about best-laid plans? I did accomplish the review, but that led into a sort of Q&A that became much broader than simple process improvement. We talked for at least an hour about change management, prioritization, working on things over which you have control (rather than boiling the ocean), the benefits and challenges of organizational transformation (Cathie was there for that part and added some really helpful points of view from an operations perspective), and the history of ServiceOntario! (Scott McConnell will be pleased to know that the little video on ServiceOntario has now been viewed in Uganda, and they LOVED it. It encouraged them to think about their own brand values as they organize their efforts to transform.)

After the Q&A we got back to work, and I asked everyone to come up with a problem statement of their own, and report out on that. What should have been a 20 minute exercise took an hour, but watching people slowly "get it", was incredible. By the time we finished, we had 25 problem statements, of which at least half were absolutely applicable and workable. From there I asked each table to select one, and we would work on that for the rest of the day.

I had hoped that process mapping would take about an hour. But that slowly turned into two hours, and there was NO WAY I was going to shut it down. There was excellent work going on - people were standing and pointing and using flip chart paper and masking tape and laughing and working together. The Commissioner, who had been difficult to convince to participate in activity report-outs, was all up in the mix, helping out and working in partnership with his table mates.

I sat with each table in turn, helping people turn theory into application, hearing about the issues they are trying to work on and sharing our own similar experiences. Here are some of the issues that they want to fix:

1. The Land Registration Process. I think all my colleagues will smile at that one, as it has been years and years of very hard work for ServiceOntario to get where it is today in the LR process. Well, the Ugandan process includes several steps that utilize a "typing pool" - that may tell you where they are on the transformation journey.
2. The process for paying teachers. Presently this involves 8 different organizations - 3 government ministries, 3 separate departments, the national Bank of Uganda, and the commercial banks with which teachers bank. An enormous percentage (I think it was around 20 or 30%) of teachers do not get paid because something goes wrong with their bank account information. It is weeks and weeks of work to correct this.
3. The process for issuing pensioners cheques. Another 8 branches are involved in this, and the cheques are both late and inaccurate most of the time.
4. Teacher registrations - right now 100% of teachers are to register with the system in order to track and monitor curriculum success and a variety of other things. The process is so cumbersome that only 30% bother to register.

And there were more. We spent most of the afternoon talking through these processes, applying additional tools, and understanding what the next steps might be. At the end of the day, one of the Directors arrived (she had to miss the class because it is budget time), and she said "I don't understand the words my team is using!" I loved that she said this! Her team was talking about Voice of Customer, Critical to Quality, Operational Definitions, Swimlane, As-is, Should-be and Thought-to-be process maps, cycle time, inputs and outputs. It was astonishing - I am not sure when the turning point was, but there certainly was one.

Perhaps it was after lunch. One of the participants had been late in the morning and I told him he would have to sing the National Anthem for the class. I had threatened that before, but this time, I meant it. He was so good natured, but still hesitant, so I decided I had to make a fool of myself before he would agree to do the same. I shocked the class by singing a little bit from Singin' in the Rain, and so then Banan (the participant in question) had no trouble jumping up and starting to sing. Then the entire class stood as well, and they all sang together - the beautiful words and rich tones of the anthem gave me goosebumps - surely this was a highlight of my trip. There was a real feeling of cameraderie with the class and they seemed to fall-in and work together so well after that point.

Eventually the day had to end. So, after a wrap-up, a reminder that they are now all "experts" because they have had more training than anyone else around them, and some action planning on their next steps, we ended the day.

I was pleased that their next steps included timelines, a call for performance measurement and accountability, and realistic deliverables. I was also pleased when one participant's suggested action item included a solution (hiring more typists for the typing pool) and several of his colleagues shouted, "NO! That's a solution! We don't know if that's the problem! You have to get proof first!" Seriously. They did.

Finally we got to the speeches to close the workshop. Everyone was thanked, and the organizers said lovely things about all of us from Ontario. I was asked to go back next year, but this will depend on the program arrangement that IPAC/CIDA and the two partners (Uganda/Ontario) can agree to. Cathie is going to discuss it with the powers-that-be, and see whether Business Process Review can become a core function of the partnership.

In the meantime, I have agreed to support my class over email, and help them with their on-going process work. (To my team who is probably reading this: I am hoping to buddy you up with the Ugandans to build your teaching/coaching skills and share our process knowledge most effectively. Think about it! Could be exciting! (And no, that doesn't mean you're all going to Uganda... unless you win the lottery...))

I was presented with many gifts when I left - a series of monkeys carved in ebony, the first one called George (after my red-tailed monkey) and the rest also with "G" names (Georgina, Gulu, etc), a picture of a tribal woman doing the dance I "mastered" last night, a conference table with carved animals sitting around it, etc etc. It was lovely and so thoughtful - each gift had a meaning derived after only a week of working with the Uganda team.

There were so many shining moments today, and at the end, the comment from the Commissioner really touched me: "We hope Madam Ruth comes back again, because has worked with us, sat with us, and really cared about our processes as if they are her processes. She is more Ugandan than many Ugandans."

Wow, eh? See why I want to stay?