Cape Cod Child Development Increases Preschool Enrollment By 10% With GLSS
Lean Six Sigma Process Improvement Results: Increasing Preschool Enrollment From 75% to 85%
Cape Cod Child Development is a trailblazer in applying Lean Six Sigma to the nonprofit world. Watch this 30 minute success story webinar to learn how Jennelle Klun is helping to increase enrollment in the critical Head Start Program.
PROJECT SUMMARY
In September of 2016, Head Start preschool enrollment at Cape Cod Child Development was down 25%, increasing the risk of losing both federal/state funding and revenue for the agency.
Jenelle Klun and her process improvement team sought out to improve the preschool enrollment rate from 75% to 80% between September 2016 and September 2017.
Business Case & Benefits:
This project is a priority, so that we don’t lose our EEC or Head Start contracts. It will help increase revenue for our agency, and ensure we keep our current slots.
DEFINE PHASE: IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM
By utilizing the Voice of the Customer, the team was able to gain insight and information on what was causing the low enrollment rate and ultimately the requirements families needed.
And what we were hearing from our customers was, âWhy do I need to be on a waiting list? I need childâs care tomorrow.â And that was really the most important thing for families, needing to get back to work or back into school was meeting that immediate access to childâs care and for the enrollment process to not be so long and take so many days and so many weeks to get their children in our programs.
Key Take Aways:Â
- Families need their children to begin in classrooms right away, and not be put on a waiting list
- There were too many forms to complete
- Files kept need to be in compliance with EEC and Head Start.
So, it was quite a long process. Itâs very hard for families to call the doctor repeatedly, get the medical information, get the dental from the dentist. It was a hardship to the families to have to do all those steps.
Lean Six Sigma Tools Used: Voice of the Customer Translation Matrix, SIPOC, Swimlane Map
MEASURE PHASE: QUANTIFY THE PROBLEM
After identifying baseline data and measuring it, Klun realized that by May of 2017, enrollment was down to 39%, an incredibly low number that needed to be corrected right away.
At this point, she developed a data collection plan to measure what they thought could be the cause of the low enrollment.
There is an ebb and flow in our enrollment. Of course, they are people and so they commonly go with movement on the Cape and the homelessness and things like that. But that was a real drastic drop for us at that point.
Lean Six Sigma Tools Used: Data Collection Plan
ANALYZE PHASE: IDENTIFY THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM
It was time to identify the possible root causes of the low performance, so the team spent time analyzing the data they had been collecting. They found that:
- Incomplete applications and required forms seemed to be the main issues that the team had control over changing
- Families that are applying are over income have difficulty obtaining required paperwork
- Waiting for health documents was the leading reason for delayed enrollment (28%)
And what we come to find out was that it was a health information. Again, it was that physical and the immunizations and the dental record that we were requiring for families that was delaying the enrollment process for them.
Lean Six Sigma Tools Used: Fishbone Diagram, Root Cause Hypothesis, Pareto Chart
IMPROVE PHASE: MAINTAIN THE SOLUTION
Plotting out solutions to the problems via the Impact Effort Matrix helped Klun identify the best route to take to impact the intended results.
Improvements:
- Added an online enrollment application
- Implemented new procedure that will allow children to enroll sooner, and will assure the team is aware of medical concerns
- Applications are now passed to teachers for enrollment without medical information
...weâre at 75% enrolled in September 2016. And then at the end of September 2017, we were at 84% enrolled just simply by looking at our processes and making a change.
Lean Six Sigma Tools Used:Â Improvements to the process, eliminating steps
So Iâm a huge coffee drinker and I go down the street, Iâm going to be honest, and I will sit and order my coffee and I will watch all the workers just running around and running around and Iâm just thinking of back to the Bahamas and the bistro and going like, âOh, they should really do a Lean Six Sigma training here because there are just so many extra steps being taken and stuff just isnât where it should be as far as the coffee being at this end and the creamer being at the other end.â - Jennelle Klun
CONTROL PHASE: IMPLEEMTN AND VERIFY THE SOLUTION
Benefits & Lesson Learned
Benefits:
- Enrollment increased in September by nearly 10% over the previous year
- Thereâs now opportunity to improve the preschool enrollment process
- Klun is now able to take new skills and improve future processes
Lessons Learned:
- Communication is key
- Collecting data is âworth whileâ
- Learning a new way of looking at processing will be very helpful in the future
Iâve been here will be 13 years and youâre in a process and you donât notice that thereâs opportunity for change unless you really sit and you go through this Lean Six Sigma process and you can say, âWow! I have never looked at it this way over the 13 years Iâve been here.â
Lean Six Sigma Tools Used:Â Monitoring & Response Plan
