NDCS Team Member Spotlight: Process Improvement Coordinator Shaun Grantski

Process Improvement Coordinator Shaun Grantski is one of the NDCS teammates leading the charge to create positive change in the department. The process improvement team works with sponsors to identify initiatives that would enhance agency culture, facilitate effectiveness, create efficiencies and savings and put the focus on customers. Utilizing Lean Six Sigma methodologies, processes are improved by pinpointing problems and replacing them with smarter solutions.

The journey to improvement is multi-step. The process improvement team gathers information, interviews people related to the process, collects opinions from those involved, groups the results into themes, assembles a project team, maps out the current process and ultimately, looks for ways to improve it. Some projects require a whole redesign of the process, while others do not. Grantski said that the heart of Lean Six Sigma is process redesign.

“As the process improvement coordinator, we help facilitate brainstorming sessions with the project team and we have a lot of tools we can use to help brainstorm and problem solve,” said Grantski. “We’re setup to get the team together in one room and help them work out the solutions.”

Among the four members of the process improvement team, they are currently juggling 25 ongoing projects. At any given time, they handle five to 10 projects each.
 

Grantski is leading several process improvement projects. One of those initiatives involves creating a more efficient process to ensure an inmate transferring to another facility has all his/her personal belongings and medical charts. He is also working on projects to make background/intel checks consistent throughout the department and enhance employee engagement between all the facilities.
 

Grantski came to NDCS while job searching during the pandemic. He started in September 2020. “I saw this position, applied for it, interviewed for it and I had a good feeling about it,” Grantski said. “I feel like this is where I’m supposed to be.”
 

Grantski graduated with a degree in business management and organizational leadership. Before NDCS, he previously worked as a project team manager for Region V Systems, where he received experience in leading a team and being a supervisor.

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