A Lean Approach for Multi-criteria Decision-Making in Public Services' Strategy Deployment

The public services' related strategy deployment (SD) process involves complex and multi-criteria decision-making. Group decision-making is often characterized by, among other things, some degree of managerial discretion, silo thinking, poor consensus and ad hoc approaches, for simplification purposes. This reduces consistency and results in a high level of variability in the overall performance, due to ambiguous and flawed translation into operational targets. Hence, it is necessary to investigate the potential use of scientific approaches to improve the consistency and minimize the variability of the performance of organizations providing public services. This paper presents the use of a Lean approach, by incorporating Gemba Walks, A3 and the analytic hierarchy process, to improve consistency and minimize the variability of an SD-related decision-making process in a public organization. Action research, supplemented by a practical case exercise, is performed, using qualitative and quantitative data, in one Norwegian police district. The proposed methodology provides a structured approach to consolidating different managerial perspectives, to systematically prioritize strategic alternatives and directions in a more meticulous and credible way, decreasing the possibility of minority domination and subjective views. The suggested approach can help build consensus and improve the consistency associated with group decision-making and minimize the adverse consequences of an ineffective SD process.