Use these sample improvement projects to design a test of change in your system.
#1: Reduce length of time from identification to housing
Why you chose this improvement project: You want to reduce the length of time from identification to housing, but there are many parts of that process. You begin by choosing one segment—match to lease-up—and working to shrink its length of time. You decide to test the change with two or three navigators, because it’s easier to coordinate with fewer people, and you can track their progress easily.
Project Lead: Consider someone who oversees housing navigators or runs the case conferencing meeting.
Start date and end date: Try 8 weeks for a project like this one. Once you compare your baseline number to your goal, you will have a clearer idea of how long the project should run.
A measure: Average length of time from resource match to lease-up, for the clients tracked by project
Predicted impact against your team's purpose: Increased outflow! A reduced length of time per client should allow you to house more people each month.
What the Project Lead should watch for: Break a big change into small parts; you can’t redesign and test your entire process at once, so select one part of the process and start there. Choose the part of the process for which you have the clearest, most accessible data; it will help you understand if this change has actually resulted in an improvement.
#2: Improve By-Name List integration in case conferencing
Why you chose this improvement project: You may take for granted that integrating your BNL into case conferencing is a good idea, but the goal is to make case conferencing more effective. Your theory is that this change will help you get through more of the list and create next steps for more clients.
Project Lead: Consider your case conferencing or coordinated entry lead.
Start date and end date: Four weeks is probably enough time to test a change in two case conferencing meetings and track the results.
A measure: Number of clients from the BNL discussed in case conferencing meeting, including an immediate next step
Predicted impact against your team's purpose: Increased outflow! The process efficiency should equate to folks being housed faster.
What the Project Lead should watch for: It feels good to make a process more efficient but watch carefully to ensure that it is having the effect you predicted. Otherwise you may create a more efficient process but not impact the actively homeless number. Don’t settle for efficiency for efficiency’s sake! Fearlessly measure the impact of your project and keep tweaking it until it produces the desired improvement.
#3: Implement diversion at one access point
Why you chose this improvement project: You know that to end homelessness, you must slow inflow into your system. Diversion promises to help but has been notoriously difficult to measure. Tightly scope an improvement project to confirm if your community’s approach to diversion is accomplishing what you intended or if it needs more work.
Project Lead: Consider someone who will be hard-nosed about collecting data, even in ambiguous circumstances.
Start date and end date: Try 4 weeks for this project. If the inflow rate doesn’t begin to slow, try a different improvement project.
A measure: Number of individuals entering the by-name list through the access points where you are running the test
Predicted impact against your team's purpose: Decreased inflow!
What the Project Lead should watch for: Diversion is tricky to measure. You want to make sure that diverting individuals from one access point doesn’t increase entries at another access point. Get curious! Check your project data against the high-level data that’s available.
#4: Increase supply of housing units by engaging landlords
Why you chose this improvement project: To move people into housing we need more units. To gain access to more units, we believe we need more landlords participating. Sometimes landlord engagement is a “shiny thing” we chase, and this project offers an opportunity to test if these activities are worthwhile or if we need to figure out a new way to increase our store of available units.
Project Lead: Someone outgoing and persuasive who will love meeting landlords
Start date and end date: We recommend 4-6 weeks for a project like this one. Pitching landlords on joining the movement will include light research, reaching out to them, meeting up with landlords who express interest, and establishing a communication method re: upcoming available units.
A measure: Number of newly available units gained by activities from this project
Predicted impact against your team's purpose: Accelerated outflow! Increased housing units should help us house some people who have been stuck on the BNL.
What the Project Lead should watch for: This project may be one that helps around the margins but produces a low impact overall. Don’t sink too much time or resources into it without proving that it will pay off. Consider balancing it with another project project that will make a huge stride toward functional zero.