Can Lean & Agile Help to Fix Our Courts? Part 4

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

The past several blogs we've looked at how to improve the Jury Selection process:

1. Jury Panel Selection --> 2. Jury Selection --> 3. Court Case

Our purpose is to increase flow and reduce overall cycle time. In other words, jurors get picked quicker, and court cases get processed quicker.

What can muck up the process? Last blog we inferred an important root cause: poor visual management.

Today we'll look to Little's Law for more insight:

Lead Time = Loading/Capacity

To reduce Lead Time we'd need to either:

• Increase capacity, or
• Reduce loading

How might we increase capacity?

Here are some ideas:

• Run court rooms over two shifts - day & night,
• Reduce delay, defect & over-processing waste by level-loading the Jury Selection process
- Enablers: visual management: Target vs. Actual -- Jury panel members, Jury members, cases, courtrooms & other relevant value stream data

How might we reduce case loading on the court system?

• More cases heard by a judge (sans jury), as in some European jurisdictions

One final suggestion, from my friend & colleague, Al Norval, who has been a juror a number of times:

Move to a professional jury system.

Rationale:

• Quicker & better decisions
- Many jurors lack the experience & knowledge to understand much testimony
- Paid jurors would likely be older, wiser and more motivated to effect justice

• Reduces burden on citizens who are unable to serve because of family or work commitments

Let me conclude as I began in Part 1 of this series:

The problems in the system, and not the people, who I found to be courteous & capable.

How to preserve the integrity of our humane & splendid 19th century system -- while satisfying the needs of a 21st century society?

I believe the principles of Lean & Agile can help.

Best regards

Pascal



In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Can Lean & Agile Help to Fix Our Courts? Part 3
The Role of Senior Leaders (Part 1)
Can Lean & Agile Help to Fix Our Courts? Part 2
Ambidexterity - How to Get Started

Can Lean & Agile Help to Fix Our Court Systems? Part 4

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

The past several blogs we've looked at how to improve the Jury Selection process:

1. Jury Panel Selection --> 2. Jury Selection --> 3. Court Case

Our purpose is to increase flow and reduce overall cycle time. In other words, jurors get picked quicker, and court cases get processed quicker.

What can muck up the process? Last blog we inferred an important root cause: poor visual management.

Today we'll look to Little's Law for more insight:

Lead Time = Loading/Capacity

To reduce Lead Time we'd need to either:

• Increase capacity, or
• Reduce loading

How might we increase capacity?

Here are some ideas:

• Run court rooms over two shifts - day & night,
• Reduce delay, defect & over-processing waste by level-loading the Jury Selection process
- Enablers: visual management: Target vs. Actual -- Jury panel members, Jury members, cases, courtrooms & other relevant value stream data

How might we reduce case loading on the court system?

• More cases heard by a judge (sans jury), as in some European jurisdictions

One final suggestion, from my friend & colleague, Al Norval, who has been a juror a number of times:

Move to a professional jury system.

Rationale:

• Quicker & better decisions
- Many jurors lack the experience & knowledge to understand much testimony
- Paid jurors would likely be older, wiser and more motivated to effect justice

• Reduces burden on citizens who are unable to serve because of family or work commitments

Let me conclude as I began in Part 1 of this series:

The problems in the system, and not the people, who I found to be courteous & capable.

How to preserve the integrity of our humane & splendid 19th century system -- while satisfying the needs of a 21st century society?

I believe the principles of Lean & Agile can help.

Best regards

Pascal

Can Lean & Agile Help to Fix Our Courts? Part 1

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Number 1 daughter, Eleanor, is a first year Law student at McGill University. She spends a lot of time in court, and is appalled at the hassle & confusion.

“It’s awful, Dad! I spend hours trying to find and make sense of things – and I’m a Law student! How do regular folks feel?” We've had some fine discussions, the gist of which I'd like to share today and over the next several blogs.

As it happens, I have some personal experience. A few years ago, I spent several days on a jury panel, waiting to see if I'd be picked to serve.

A handful of countries including U.K., America, and Canada have been lucky enough to inherit the British system of law & order.

Let me begin by saying I strongly believe it's our civic duty to support it.

The judge was a learned, humane and articulate man, who spoke eloquently of this same duty, and contrasted our system with those of other, less lucky countries.

Nonetheless, despite his eloquence, my commitment & that of my fellow jury panel members, our three days felt largely wasted...

Wasted in the Toyota Production System sense -- we experienced unnecessary delay, errors, over-processing, transportation and motion waste.

In the end very few of us were called as jury members. Many were frustrated by all the waste, and unlikely to want to serve again.

Our experience was no exception. Across America and Canada, court back-logs are reaching two & three years, and bad guys are getting off.

As ever, the problem is in the system, and not the people, who I found to be courteous & capable.

Here’s our challenge: How to preserve the integrity of a humane & splendid 19th century system -- while satisfying the needs of a 21st century society?

Can the principles of Lean and Agile, (both ‘children’ of the Toyota Production System) help?

If so, how?

More to come.

Best regards,

Pascal