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INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA) received a national award for Management Innovation at the 45th Annual National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA) Annual Conference and Showplace recently held in Nashville, Tennessee September 26-29, 2015.
“It is an honor to be recognized as a leader in management innovation among state housing finance agencies throughout our country,” said Jacob Sipe, Executive Director at IHCDA who was also elected to the NCSHA board of directors during the event. “Based on conversations at the conference, I am confident that many of our counterparts in other states have a desire to further explore implementing the Lean Daily Management System or LDMS in their own divisions.”
In early 2014, IHCDA identified that a majority of the staff struggled to identify how their work contributed to the mission and vision of the agency, which was also not clearly understood. Even more concerning was the feedback that staff felt they had little control or decision making authority.
To help address this problem not only at IHCDA, but the other state agencies she oversees as well, Lt. Governor Sue Ellspermann suggested implementing a lean strategy.
“I couldn’t be happier for IHCDA to be recognized nationally by their peers for the successful implementation of the LDMS program,” said Lt. Governor Ellspermann, who serves as the IHCDA board chair. “Our staff and team members are our most important asset and by practicing a lean model that assesses quality, time waste and over processing, LDMS has empowered our staff to have more of a vested interest in their daily tasks and how it feeds into the bigger picture.”
Seven other state housing finance agencies were up for consideration to receive the Management Innovation award in the category of Operations. The award recognizes annually a state that has shown outstanding innovation in internal operations management to strengthen agency operations and achieve strategic objectives.
As recognized in the NCSHA awards summary, a result of implementing the LDMS process has provided IHCDA staff to grow as individuals and employees, improving their ability to efficiently and effectively serve the residents of Indiana and with the improved processes and procedures resulted in significant cost savings.
