Denver Peak Academy

My name is Macrina Ghiran and I’m a black belt from Cohort 54! I work in the Public Works Finance & Administration Department, and I’m the person in charge of invoicing and processing payments for residents who need permits for dumpsters, street cuts, street occupancy, smart cards, etc.

When customers send in checks to pay their bill, some of them arrive in envelopes that are not addressed to the right person or to any person at all. As you can imagine, this makes it very difficult to deliver the check to the right person. In fact, when I had to cover work for the mail person in my department one day, I couldn’t deliver it to the right person unless I opened each envelope individually and read the contents inside. This caused me to spend an extra 30 minutes per day just delivering mail! I found this to be incredibly frustrating, so I decided to do something about it.

I spent about 30 minutes adding my contact information to all the invoices, cover sheets and other pieces of correspondence that I manage on a regular basis. This way anyone who receives a bill from me will have my information when they need it, and will hopefully be more likely to write my name on the envelope when they send in their payments. Within a few days of updating the contact information, I received five checks all addressed to me! I also had a few customers call me directly, which helps me process their payments faster.

This quick and simple innovation has saved me, my customers and fellow employees a considerable amount of turnaround time, and it allows me to process my payments and deposit the money so much faster. Thank you Peak Academy, and to other black belts for training me to improve processes. And to anyone interested in improving their own work, you can do it too!

• Macrina T. Ghiran – PW Finance & Administration