How does the BTEP Toolkit Work?

The BTEP Toolkit gives departments, agencies and levels of government a “common language” to identify programs and services that serve the same target groups (e.g., clients) with the same or similar needs. The tools enable diverse public sector players to undertake collaborative alignment, analysis, and problem definition. Using them creates consensus about “ripe” opportunities for transformation, such as business processes that can be streamlined and services that can be integrated. The Toolkit also provides a step-by-step, iterative methodology for developing visions, strategies and designs to implement business transformation.

Different organizations have their own cultures and their own ways of describing their processes, functions and services. This makes it difficult to collaborate – to come together and identify opportunities where processes and services can be better coordinated or integrated, and determine whether doing so will deliver outcomes that all players agree make these opportunities worth pursuing.

One of the tools in the BTEP Toolkit – the Governments of Canada Strategic Reference Models or GSRM – provides “universal” definitions for terms commonly used in the public sector, such as “program”, “service”, “need”, “output” and “outcome”. Using it enables participants to produce models that graphically depict different views of their business – their programs and services – from the perspective of clients, resources, outcomes, etc. This makes it possible to conduct rigorous, high level analysis. The models look intimidating at first, but quickly become intuitive as participants learn what the colour coding and legends used represent. Because most government business processes are complex, and involve dozens if not hundreds of distinct transactions, it is a lot easier to “depict” this complexity visually than by using words, and less likely to lead to misunderstandings or error.

The GSRM define and depict things “objectively” so everyone involved comes to the same understanding about:

• What is produced (e.g., an inventory of service outputs)
• Who produces it and for whom it is produced (e.g., providers and target groups)
• Why it is produced (e.g., target group needs, program goals and desired outcomes)
• How it is produced (e.g., programs, services and business processes)
• Where and when it is produced (e.g., jurisdictions, points of service, events and cycles)
• Critical relationships (e.g., cross-organization value chains, accountability and performance metrics)

Models that answer these questions for the “as is state” make it possible to discover where there is redundancy and duplication, or gaps in services, and identify opportunities for transformation to streamline and improve services. They can also be generated for the “to be” state, giving as much detail as collaborators need in order to plan and design new ways of doing business and providing services.

The BTEP Toolkit’s methodology has been designed to help players avoid “boiling the ocean.” It enables participants to use the other tools in the Toolkit – e.g., the GSRM – iteratively, steadily building visions, strategies, designs and plans for transformation that enable high value projects to be pursued to deliver early returns, and to influence existing projects, bringing them into alignment with the overall direction participants agree should be pursued.

The thinking behind the Toolkit is that by enabling governments to use the same approach to identify, design and implement change, going forward there will be more order, consistency and re-usability in business transformation across the public sector.