Work Portfolio CONTACT INFORMATION
benthomas48@hotmail.com 518-653-1851
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Voice of the Customer Feedback
Examples of Results
from Past Work
Lean Projects
Summary of Work Experience
Process Improvement Work |
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Work Samples
Process Improvement Tools
Work Portfolio
Portfolio Contents
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Knowledge Management Work Work Samples Organizational Assessment
The 5S System
Process Maps
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Work Samples
Work Samples
3D Model of Strategic Map
Organizational Design Initiative
Performance Management Work
Organizational Design and Strategic Planning Work |
Operational Work Plans
Business Intelligence Work Work Sample Customized Dashboards
Action Report
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Summary of Work Experience
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Ben ideates, strategizes, and executes. He is passionate about helping organizations and individuals to achieve their goals and maximize their potential through critical thinking, innovative problem-solving, and personalized training and development.
Ben holds a Bachelor of Psychology degree from SUNY University at Albany and a Master of Educational Psychology degree from The College of St. Rose, which together laid the foundation for successfully teaching and training others.
Over the course of his nearly 20-year career, Ben has gained an understanding of the challenges faced by a wide range of organizations. He has worked on the East Coast and on the West Coast, in for-profit corporate America and in non-profit local organizations, on basketball courts and in office buildings, in a small community college and in large state agencies. Through these varied experiences, Ben has gained different styles of problem-solving skills and a unique perspective. Regardless of their size or mission, Ben recognizes the importance for all organizations to achieve overall efficiency through successful organizational design, and he knows how to help an organization of any size or type set the pace for sustainable growth through effective business strategy.
Ben’s drive to help others achieve their goals is evidenced by the 2.5 years he worked as a social worker; the 3 years he taught marketing as a continuing educational instructor at Columbia-Greene Community College; and the 6 years he worked as an Employment Counselor at the New York State Department of Labor (DOL), in which he helped thousands of job seekers. While he worked at DOL, Ben also served in a training consultant role. He developed, facilitated, and led training sessions for DOL employees across the state, offering fresh insights on continual development, emotional intelligence, and how job seekers can leverage social media to secure employment. He also served as the Department’s main presenter at numerous conferences and job fairs.
For the past 7 years, Ben has focused on helping teams achieve their goals in his role as a Senior Administrative Analyst within the New York State Department of Health (DOH), where he has gained an awareness and understanding of a wide range of health policies and issues. While working with DOH, Ben has built solutions that led to the expansion of the scope of its services, created tools to measure department-wide performance, and built adaptable teams. He has created operational work plans, found root causes and resolutions to persistent issues, and led performance improvement workshops and kaizen projects to help teams improve their business processes. His work has increased and maximized productivity within and outside of his division, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. The breadth and depth of Ben's past work experience, as well as his abilities to work on high-visibility initiatives and work with executive personnel, uniquely qualify him to contribute to an organization’s success.
Work Portfolio
"I envy your capacity to cut to the chase and find the nugget in the madness." (Jan Chytilo, Program Director, NYS Department of Health)
“Ben is a savant, extremely hard working, and laser like focus. He’s someone you want on your team.” (Dana Pump., CEO/President of Double Pump)
Voice of the Customer Feedback from Past Work “Ben’s work is exceptional. He consistently completes high level work and has always cooperated with and been very helpful to the team in our office. We value working with him.” (Tye Woodson-Craig., Director of the NYS LEAN Program, NYS Executive Chamber)
"The workshop was transformative and the leadership team has really become rejuvenated with creative ideas to improve various programs within the department. Mr. Thomas was well received by staff; he was insightful, enlightening, and exhilarating." (Kevin D. Watkins, MD, MPH., Cattaraugus County Public Health Director)
"I met Ben at a [conference] where he gave a dynamic presentation on the advantage of social networking sites related to workforce development. His presentation was unlike any other and captivated the audience from beginning to end, while at the same time delivering substance and practicality that can be utilized by anyone. Since then, I've worked with Ben on a couple of workforce projects. He is a public service professional providing private industry-grade service. He exceeds standards and always delivers a professional grade product." (Atul Sheffey., Manager of Manhattan Career Center, NYS Department of Labor)
“I’m consistently impressed with not only the range of Ben’s performance improvement knowledge, but also his abilities to identify the relevant issues and choose the exact tools needed to correct them.” (Melanie Stange, Project Coordinator, NYS Department of Health)
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Performance Management Work Performance management is an assessment of how well an organization is currently achieving its goals, mission, and strategic plan. When leaders and staff have an accurate sense of what is working and what isn’t, they are able to focus time, energy, and resources to overcome obstacles that are standing in the way of achieving desired
Work Samples
3D Model of Strategic Map
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outcomes. Additionally, since performance management is increasingly being required by national and statewide accreditation agencies, an organization will likely need to focus on this topic if it hopes to become accredited in its field.
The Challenge : An organization needed to better understand how each program area was performing in real-time. It had tried using an Excel spreadsheet to track metrics for each program area's processes, but that had not worked well. Formatting the spreadsheet was cumbersome, which led to inaccurate calculations. Additionally, it lacked a dynamic visualization that senior leadership desired, which would instantly highlight what areas were performing well and which were falling behind their goals.
The Solution : Ben worked with this organization to create a 3D model of their strategic map. The 3D model indicates how well each program area is performing in real time. The height and color of each piece of the map indicates the performance of that program area. A tall piece with a saturated color indicates a program area is performing well, and a short piece with a pale color indicates a program area could use some assistance in overcoming challenges. The model is interactive. Clicking on a piece displays its performance measures and data for its key performance indicators. The data used to create the model is stored in a database (e.g., Microsoft Excel file). When an organization keeps the database updated, the map will automatically update in real time.
Work Portfolio
Action Reports
The Challenge : A large organization’s performance management system was struggling. The organization recognized the importance of evaluating how each program area was performing, but discovered many of its program areas did not understand how to set and/or measure appropriate benchmarks to gauge their performance. As a result, the performance management system was ineffective.
The Solution : First, Ben surveyed all staff in the organization to gather information about the current system of tracking programs’ performance. Using this information, Ben created a rubric of measures to be used to evaluate each program area’s key processes. A workgroup was formed which collectively determined the most appropriate reporting interval to be used for each process: monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annually. At each relevant interval, the program areas completed the rubric for their processes. Expectations were set that when a program area’s performance fell below its expected value (i.e., its performance was in the red zone), that program area would meet with the workgroup. Working collaboratively with the team, Ben helped the program area determine whether their benchmarks and measures were appropriate. As needed, he helped them choose better metrics to evaluate their success. This process helped the teams take ownership of their own benchmarks and key performance indicators that would be used to measure their effectiveness. Ben also trained the program areas on how to use their historical data to predict future trends and expected performance levels. Finally, Ben trained the teams how to track and manage these metrics going forward, as well as what to do when their Rubric indicated they were falling below expected performance.
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Process Improvement Work Examples of Results Process improvement is exactly what its name implies: it is the act of improving processes. As W. Edwards Deming is attributed as saying, "Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." If an organization is not satisfied with either its product or the time it takes to produce that product, the way to make the results better is to evaluate and improve the organization’s work processes. Processes can be improved in different ways. Sometimes new steps need to be added. Sometimes existing steps need to be streamlined. Sometimes existing steps are unnecessary and need to be removed. Regardless of the fix, the goal of process improvement is the same: to make work flow efficiently through all steps of a process.
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After working with Ben on a project to improve their business processes, staff of the New York State birth certificate office reduced the time needed to process certificate applications by 99%. Another health program’s long-standing backlog of claims payments to be processed decreased by 43% after Ben worked with its staff to analyze and improve its outdated manual processes. This same program saw a 475% increase in the number of claims entered by staff. After Ben helped a team that needed to decrease the amount of time spent on approving applications, their approval cycle time was reduced by over 60%. Additionally, fewer application corrections were needed to be made by those submitting the applications.
Work Portfolio
Work Samples Lean Projects
Lean is a systematic approach of continuous improvement. Its main goals are to (a) make value flow at the pull of the customer, and (b) to identify and eliminate waste that is hindering that value flow and/or is not adding value to the product or process. Waste includes activities that do not add value, waiting time when nothing is accomplished, or physical waste in the form of excessive materials or products. When leading a lean project, Ben first works with the Deployment Manager, Project Sponsor, or project Lead to develop a qualified and diverse team. After the team is in place, Ben works with all team members to complete the following steps :
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Decide what will be in and out of scope for the project, develop a problem statement, and discuss the timeline of the project Create a Value Stream Map of the overall process and develop a data collection plan Gather Voice of the Customer data Lead a kaizen event, in which Ben leads the team in identifying problems, developing solutions, and creating an implementation plan Hold check-in meetings at the following intervals after the kaizen event: 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 6 months
By completing a lean project, a team is able to use data to identify areas within a process that can be improved. Team members are empowered to take ownership of the process and use their experience to suggest and create positive change. Additionally, team members are able to gain a systems perspective and see how each of their individual roles contributes to the final product.
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Organizational Design & Strategic Planning Work
Work Samples Operational Work Plans
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The Challenge : The mission of a program area changed drastically due to different priorities of its senior leadership; the program area had been receiving prescriptive work plans it needed to follow, then suddenly that process ended and the staff had nothing to guide their work. As a result, they were lacking direction in how to proceed. The Solution : Ben conducted a historical review of the team’s previous work plans it was expected to follow. He analyzed what had worked well and what had not. He also analyzed requests the team received from other program areas to assess how staff time was being spent. Additionally, he worked with the program area to identify key aspects of their current work. These factors included their internal and external stakeholders, as well as what
Organizational design is the overall internal structure of an organization. It captures all aspects relating to how an organization achieves what it sets out to achieve, from the minor and major work processes involved to the division of staff into teams and a staffing hierarchy. Strategic planning is the alignment of the organization’s actions to its mission. Strategic planning ensures everything the organization does--both internally and externally--is focused, deliberate, and contributing towards its cause. When an organization has a strong organizational design and effective strategic planning, it is efficient, effective, and well-positioned to succeed.
the stakeholders value and expect from the team; what tasks were most important and most meaningful; who was responsible for each task and work process; and the amount of time required for each. Using this information, Ben created a new work plan for the team to follow. The work plan included each major project the program area focused on, descriptions of each project’s deliverables, and the importance of each project. In addition to developing the work plan, Ben also taught the program area how to use it to prioritize their work and align their work with the organization’s strategic map. The senior leader of that program area’s Division within the organization then asked Ben to create an operational work plan for all the Division’s program areas.
The Challenge : A large organization was experiencing the following recurring issues across nearly all of its program areas:
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Work processes had been in place for decades and had not been updated to reflect changing stakeholder priorities, incorporate available technology, or improve work output. The “we’ve always done it this way” mentality was prevalent. Data regarding processes’ effectiveness was at best tracked inaccurately and at worst not recorded at all. When data was available, it was not centrally located or easily accessible. There was a lack of alignment of a program’s metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) across all reporting systems that required them. Additionally, the siloed structure of these systems caused reporting to be inefficient and labor intensive, which led to inaccurate and conflicting data measures and reports as programs updated some, but not all, of these reporting systems. The metrics and KPIs used to identify and define a program’s success were visible only to managers, making them unavailable to the staff conducting the work. Since staff were not aware of the metrics and KPIs they should be focusing on, they were neither monitoring and tracking the program’s goals, nor documenting processes to better understand the various factors influencing the metrics and KPIs.
Work Portfolio
Organizational Design Initiative The Solution : Ben developed a methodology and resources to improve performance management across individual programs and the organization as a whole. Ben researched and analyzed concepts ranging from business management strategy to Interdisciplinary Mathematics to cognitive psychology, then developed the Organizational Design Initiative. The Initiative helps programs document their processes, craft problem statements, set goals, and align their work to focus on strategic priorities. This is achieved by (a) analyzing the program’s assets and work it produces, (b) identifying the program's external and internal stakeholders, as well as the outcomes they value, (c) identifying the agency’s strategic priorities, and (d) structuring the program’s operational plans to ensure the work produced by the program meets the stakeholders’ values, as well as the agency’s strategic priorities. The value of the Initiative is its ability to align, streamline, and focus each of a program’s work processes with the organization’s strategic priorities. The Initiative combines individual process improvement tools to identify valuable processes and establish benchmarks, then produces a matrix that helps programs to better manage their processes, plan for the future, and set appropriate goals. Additionally, the Initiative creates an operational work plan for the program that details what staff should be doing and how to measure, analyze, and evaluate the program’s performance.
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