More expensive fuel means less traffic

On the brighter side of the perpetually rising cost of gas, Metro Manila's streets have become decongested. My proof is more anecdotal. I used to tear my hair out because of the craziness of the clogged and noisy streets. But now, even during rush hour, the streets are less noisy and there is less traffic when I drive out.

Of course, some of the decongestion can be attributed to the efforts of Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to get rid of illegal buses, taxis and the lot. But even the MMDA cannot be that efficient and it only took high gas prices to achieve what the lack of political will could not. 

After all, the streets became almost quiet and empty in the span of a few days and there is an eerie feeling of being in a sci-fi movie-- one where aliens pointed a ray gun on Metro Manila and zapped three-quarters of the vehicles. This is an effect that the pitiable efforts of MMDA could lay claim to.

And now for a quick review of the rippling impact of this development:

• Less people will go out to the malls.
• More peaceful streets, smoother commute/drive.
• But will also mean less business for malls (notably restaurants and other shops).
• Still, food deliveries will thrive. 
• If we had a better e-commerce industry, this would have gained a needed boost as more people would prefer to buy things online and have them delivered.
• Yet, I hope there was better mass transportation. More people have now be forced to use public transportation but the MRT, as most of us know, cannot absorb this increase in volume. 

Standardizing the Prosecution System (Department of Justice)

Here are pictures of my recent work. This time, it's with the Department of Justice. I'm helping them standardize and improve their basic procedures for filing cases and complaints.

It turns out that in all these years, among all the prosecutor's offices, there was really no standard way to file cases and complaints.

I can validate this because several years back, a bus rammed into my car and I had to go through the process of filing a case. There would be days when the judge, the accused or I would not be available. Every time this happened, we had to postpone the hearing for another month. There were no options to allow us to find a closer, synchronized date. I've never heard from that case again.

I had no idea what the steps where and there was no Information Desk. Lack of clarity on processes is a fertile breeding ground for corruption. ('Nuff said).

Flash forward to today. DOJ is embarking on a project to change this. It set up a Technical Working Group (TWG) composed of senior prosecutors (aka senior fiscals) who put their heads together and steadily built the manuals from scratch. Then I reviewed the flowcharts they drew to describe their system. I also helped revise and simplify the manual that will be distributed to the administrative staff.

In revising the Administrator's Manual, the Technical Working Group asked me to simplify it further to a point where anyone can understand the steps.

Problems and realities:

• Shortage of staff in the prosecutor's offices.
  
• When they do have staff, the staff lacked the needed skills (eg computer skills, filing skills -- yes, lack of filing skills for staff who are supposed to do filing work, go figure).
  

Lessons I Learned about Government Employees:

• There are nice, hardworking government employees who are genuinely pushing for change (In most government agencies I've worked with, I've seen this pattern).
• These people are very driven, in spite of the general perception against government employees.
• In the DOJ TWG, for instance, they worked from 8:30 am until 7:30 pm for FIVE DAYS STRAIGHT. Meals and snacks were served while working. And this was not easy work -- the members had to read through each sentence to check the legality and fix loopholes.
• Despite being very driven, the fiscals and DOJ staff were actually fun to work with. They were very efficient and pleasant. We debated heatedly about the contents, but everything was kept at a professional level.
  

Lessons I Learned about Improving Processes:

• First, concentrate on mapping the whole process, from process start to finish. See the big picture first (by using boxes-and-arrows diagrams).
• Follow the steps and not the people. In DOJ, the first draft of the manual tended to follow the specific staff who were assigned to do each step. This led to dense sentences that were difficult to follow. It took me a couple of days to read through the intricacies. In the end, I simplified this by focusing on the steps, not the people.
• One sentence, one step. In the first draft of the manual, a step was often 2-3 steps subsumed in one sentence. I disaggregated these complex sentences and improved the readability of the manual.
  
• Rule of thumb: make sure that the first word of a step is a verb. (If you need to put the person who is responsible for the step, you can add this later.)
  
• Avoid complicated flowchart symbols. When drawing flowcharts, use boxes and arrows. Avoid additional "computer-based" symbols like diamonds, printouts, etc. They only add to the confusion.
  

Bad Implementation: SM Cash Card

Around 2 months ago, SM Supercenter required its fast food customers to pay through a Cash Card. Here is how the procedure was intended to be:

1. Pay P200 to a central cashier. This will load P200 worth of cash in your cash card.
2. Get the Cash Card.
3. Order in the various restaurants in the fast food center.

The fast food center issued warnings and posters saying that all customers must use the Cash Card instead of paying cash directly to the food shops. Things looked all right from there but it was a perfect recipe for disaster. Here was actually what happened:

1. The Cash Card electronic system was often offline.
2. Customers who learned that they could not pay cash were turned off. Shops lost business.
3. Customers who bought Cash Cards (like my wife and I) had to pay cash anyway, whenever the system broke down. After wating in line for several minutes and then only finding out that our Cash Card was useless, we just decided not to buy from the food shops. Again, this caused loss of customers.

Tonight, my wife and I lined up again at the food shops. Our plan was to do our groceries after supper. We were very hungry, too. So imagine our anger after learning that we could not use our Cash Card again. My wife asked for the manager and the manager tried hard to convince us to pay cash again. We insisted that they refund the P200 loaded in our Cash Card. After several back-and-forths between this manager and her superiors (they kept saying they were offline), they finally just reimbursed the P200.

The problem is that although they refunded our real cash, they caused anger and even probably made the food shops lose business (in fact this is what the cashier in one of the food shops told us -- customers got turned off at the Cash Card requirement).

SM is a very popular mall in the Philippines. In fairness, SM has been able to institute many improvements to its customer experience. However, it still sometimes implements stupid policies like this one.

• In the first place, requiring a Cash Card is an additional step that adds no value to the customer or the business.
  
• Moreover it adds a second step to HUNGRY consumers who sometimes have to line up, since the central Cash Card office has only one employee to process all customers of the fast food center.
• Also, what happens if I have a few pesos left in it? I would have to reload and I keep feeling that my money is not being maximized.
  
• Lastly, it frustrates customers, since it is also unreliable.
  

SM should rethink this Cash Card project of theirs.