This month, we interview Peter Bice, Business Excellence Partner at the City of Marion.


Hi Peter, please tell us a bit about yourself.

What’s your current role?
Business Excellence Partner at the City of Marion

How did you get into that role?
I saw the job and thought  "Wow! That looks like a great way to make a meaningful difference across an entire organisation and to a community; which uses a broad range of skills, tools and approaches to improve the way things are done".

What do you like best about the current job?
Working with staff from diverse work areas and levels in the Council, as well as networking with other professionals to learn from and share leading practice approaches, systems and processes. The systemic and systematic focus required. I also enjoy the opportunity I am afforded through my role as a Evaluation Team Leader in the annual Business Excellence Awards process, which enable me to see and learn from high performing organisations from different industries and enhance my understanding of where LG is able to improve and lead the way.
       
What advice would you give someone looking to get into a similar role?
The Business Excellence Framework is essentially a Leadership and Management framework to help organisations be the best they can be, and continue to improve and raise the bar.

Studies in Management, Training, Organisational Development and Business Excellence will strengthen a potential applicants chances in a role such as this, as will personal alignment with principles of Leadership, People and Systems Thinking. Additionally, strong communication, inter-personal skills and group facilitation are critical elements of success in a role such as this, so I would encourage people to take every opportunity to develop these should they be interested.
                       
What’s next for you?
I have learnt an enormous amount in my time with City of Marion, and am continually looking to apply my learning to new projects and situations in my current role; with a view to taking on a more senior         role within Local Government in the near future.

Why did you become a member of LGMA (SA)?
I felt it a good opportunity to network with fellow professionals across Local Government in South Australia.

Please describe a typical day for us…
I suppose there is really no 'typical' day in this role as such - which is one of the reasons I love it! However common themes certainly arise, namely:

                - Partnering with and training managers and staff around use of improvement tools/techniques and areas for business improvement (PDSA, Lean Six Sigma, Systems Thinking, Root Cause etc)
                 - Developing strategies/approaches with Senior Management group
                - Getting out in the field and mix it up with staff of all backgrounds and experience levels (a highlight for me), including mapping end-to-end processes
                - Representing Marion at the Local Government Business Excellence Network (LGBEN - www.lgben.net.au), and the South Australian chapter (SA LGBEN)
                - Assessing organisational capability and capacity to deliver across broad service areas