Burwood Council

A primary objective of our work was to identify and implement efficiencies for their development application (DA) process. To achieve this objective, we utilised the concepts in our proven three-phase Improvement Model.

Our Improvement Model commences with a Process Discovery phase, which involved establishing a project group and conducting a system-wide review and mapping of the current state process at the council to understand the existing landscape.

In the next phase, Process Design, we worked with council staff and stakeholders to design an optimal future state process and to test the feasibility of identified productivity gains. The result of this phase was to create a blueprint for a future state process that would improve efficiency and productivity.

In the final phase of the model, Process Implementation, we worked with the council to implement the re-engineered future state process effectively and sustainably. We also provided post-implementation support to the council to further enhance the efficacy of the new process.

Overall, we were successful in improving the performance of the council’s DA process by decreasing the number of steps required for a determination from 308 individual process steps to 48 process steps.

Staff at Burwood Council were pleased with the results of our process improvements, and the success of our work on this project led to a further project to manage the council’s transition to digital planning.