GROSS - Getting Rid of Stupid Stuff: removing the non-value adding activities of everyday work

Aim

The idea of the project was to prompt staff to really look at their current work spaces, practices and work flow and identify non value adding activities (stupid stuff) they could reduce or eliminate with the help of their key stakeholders, and under the permission of their line manager, using Lean thinking.

Benefits

The overall beneficiary was G.R.O.S.S. S.T.U.F.F. (Get Rid of Stupid Stuff - Secure Transfer - User Friendly Functionality) - The introduction of Secure Web Transfer (SWT) to electronically send outpatient letters to GPs. $40,000 was saved p.a. with no initial outlay as the system already existed.

Background

In high reliability organisations, they continuously seek perfection without ever reaching a "good enough" status - GROSS aimed to support the frontline staff to look within their own environment for things to improve upon.

Evaluation and results

21 groups submitted their projects for the GROSS Showcase event. The winner was chosen via a People's Choice poll open for the week leading up to the Showcase. The voting was in two categories - the first was the idea that most met the brief of getting rid of stupid stuff and the second vote was for the idea that would be most likely to spread beyond the initial unit.

The entire community of patients, staff and visitors were invited to vote on the winning entry.

Lessons learnt

Amazing things will be found when permission is given to the frontline staff to remove what they see as non value adding work.