Seductive 7 Case Study #1: More Technology Situation A state agency that administers multiple programs to help low-income individuals was facing growing caseloads and delays in making timely eligibility decisions. To remedy the situation, agency management invested nearly $200 million in a cutting-edge technology platform. The technology promised to help improve how employees determined eligibility for programs such as Medicaid, cash assistance, and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as food stamps). Prior to the new platform, employees worked out of multiple systems to enter information and determine benefit eligibility. This forced redundant work and inefficiencies. The new IT system promised to address these inefficiencies by integrating all of the disparate systems. The new system also incorporated a rules-based module that automated some of the decision-making process using a basic form of Artificial Intelligence.

Facts The total elapsed time from the point at which a customer submitted an application to when an eligibility decision was made took 30 days or longer. The actual processing time, the actual time it took an employee to make a decision once he/she had all of the necessary documentation took 30 to 90 minutes, depending on the case. The new technology focused on speeding up and improving the processing timenot the overall elapsed time. The agency could have nearly doubled the size of its workforce for the amount of money invested in the new system.

Perceived Problem Agency management focused on what was visible and obviousinefficiencies resulting from multiple systems and the process of making manual versus automated eligibility decisions. In reality, the processing time was a fraction of the overall elapsed time30 minutes compared to 30 days. The opportunity to get big improvements in both quality and speed resided in focusing on the overall elapsed time, not the processing time alone. Because agency management did not define the problem correctly, it invested taxpayer dollars and employees' time in fixing the wrong problem. A quick investigation revealed that most of the elapsed time was spent waiting for customers to submit missing information and clarifying what information was required. Employees spent significant time starting and stopping the review process as information trickled into the system. Clearly defining the required documentation upfront and holding cases for processing until customers submitted a complete set of information reduced the time to make a decision by weeks while improving accuracy.

1. Provide an overview of this case. 2. What is the illusion of progress illustrated in this case study? Use the diagnostic tools to determine the illusion of progress: 1. How we define our goal 2. How we define our strategy 3. The method we use in execution 3. What mindset change needed to occur for this state agency to solve the real problem? 4. How can we avoid decorating the fish in a similar way?