Case Studies
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We Gave New Life to a Struggling Library

Missions are empowering!
Challenge
The Kigima Resource Centre faced potential closure within three years of its opening. The library was established by a nonprofit, Serve a Village, to provide books and improve literacy for seven villages, each with a seat on the library’s governing board. The board had officers and aspirations, but little definition of responsibility, and no mission to guide its direction or actions. This lack of organizational structure and common vision stymied the board’s ability to develop the library and its programming, increase usership, and become self-sustaining.
Solution
Darla first taught the library board about the benefits of establishing an organizational mission and how it is done. She facilitated a strategic planning session and engaged each board member to learn his or her desired purpose for the library. Using active listening, and consensus-building, she guided the board in articulating a unified mission that all could embrace. With a mission in place, grand visions and ideas for the library’s future emerged. Darla helped the board capture those ideas and define the roles and responsibilities needed to accomplish the board’s goals
We Averted Mission Failure

Challenge
The government division’s technology investments initially supported quicker production of staffing forecasts, but over time, bugs in programming emerged, greater quality assurance checks were applied, and the processes used to produce the staffing models became more complex. Changes in forecast model inputs, division of responsibility, and a growing mixture of automated and manual processes yielded erroneous figures that would halt the production of the staffing forecasts until the source problem could be detected and fixed. This frequently intensive effort could require several rounds of investigation before resolving the problem, each round adding to the delay of producing the staffing forecasts required for public safety.
Solution
Darla met with division leadership and key staff to discuss the challenge, impact, and desired outcome of a process assessment. Together they agreed to document the processes for producing the models, and identify opportunities for improvement. Darla identified and convened the subject matter experts over a series of process mapping workshops. She not only documented the processes but also pinpointed steps to be automated, duplicate workstreams and other inefficiencies, steps vulnerable to the introduction of error, and more potential improvements. To ensure excellence and reliability, Darla reviewed and validated with government staff the original and re-engineered process maps and helped them determine which improvements merited priority attention. She provided the government division the information they needed to strategically and systematically improve their model production and greatly reduce the risk of delays.
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