Los Angeles County
Department of Children and Family Services
 

Scope of Work:

In 2000 the new leadership of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services sought to make major operational improvements. The department had come under public scrutiny for the way it handled children in its care and their family networks. The new Director had the challenge of turning things around.

One of the Director’s important initiatives in this effort was to create a viable performance management system using the National Baldrige Quality Award criteria as the foundation. This was an entirely new approach for department staff. The Director knew there would need to be a heavy front-end investment in training, coaching and mentoring management staff in this approach. The Bukiewicz Organization (TBO) contracted with the California Inter-University Consortium supporting the department to teach the Baldrige system to senior management, middle management and supervisory staff. TBO also has been working with individual managers to help them implement projects in their part of the organization using the Baldrige approach. Most recently, TBO has been consulting with department leadership to create second-generation strategies for rolling-out this performance management approach. 

Accomplishments:

This initiative remains a work in progress. To date, almost 300 managers of the 7,000 person department have been exposed to the Baldrige approach. Many of those have begun to make work process improvements using this methodology. Some have begun to develop performance management systems.