Issue

Sound Transit, a major transit provider in the Puget Sound area, operates the Link light rail system comprised of 55 miles of line and 48 stations, with further expansions under construction. Many Link stations, as well as adjacent parking and other facilities, include elevators and escalators for which Sound Transit is responsible. With system expansions bringing more facilities online, and more riders to existing facilities, Sound Transit sought to improve its business processes related to management of elevator and escalator outages, as well as other processes related to an upcoming technology upgrade for its Link Control Center (LCC). Onit was engaged to map three specific LCC business processes and write a report making recommendations for improvement.

Strategy

Onit immediately recognized the complex stakeholder landscape involved in mapping the three designated business processes. In some areas stakeholders overlapped, but not enough to address the processes simultaneously. Other parts of the processes had entirely separate stakeholder groups with specialized requirements. Limited time was available from client SMEs to contribute to mapping activities, and participants’ needs for the project’s outputs differed. Onit’s strategy was to create a flexible engagement approach based on different participants’ availability, and to build a suite of deliverables that would serve different needs in the short- and medium-term.

Crafting a Solution

Instead of the industry’s traditional approach of hosting resource-intensive, multi-day mapping workshops, Onit first used existing documentation to create “strawman” process documentation. This provided a basis for individual and small-group working sessions, through which Onit worked with Sound Transit SMEs to progressively validate and improve current state maps, gather process improvement opportunities, and identify requirements for a future state. Onit then guided the Sound Transit SMEs in reaching consensus on a desired “future state” and documented the findings.

When considering process mapping and improvements, Onit considers the entire life cycle of the change, including future stakeholder uses for the process information, change management to understand and adopt changes, training users in the change, and onboarding of future staff. In this case Onit’s scope was to provide recommendations that would be integrated into a larger project and executed some time after the conclusion of Onit’s work. Therefore it was essential that future consumers of the process map and Onit’s report understand the reasoning of the Sound Transit SMEs contributing to the recommendations, and the outcomes they intended. To ensure clear and consistent communication of the findings, Onit created a suite of easy-to-use materials supporting the report. This included one-page descriptions of the outcomes for each process, and a “mix-andmatch” slide library to help stakeholders communicate different levels of information to different audiences, depending on their needs.

Results

Onit’s approach brought clarity to processes that had not previously been fully documented, and enabled stakeholders to reach consensus on their preferred future state for managing escalator and elevator outages and related processes as part of a wider technology change. The agency also received specific recommendations for change management and training approaches for key stakeholder groups. This positioned the Sound Transit team to better integrate LCC business process changes with upcoming technology improvements, including clarifying its business requirements.