Changing and Improving Grade 6 Example Statement (500 Words)

SAs deputy director for service delivery across six teams in different locations, I noticed the same problems being solved repeatedly in isolation. Good ideas stayed local, improvement depended entirely on individual enthusiasm, and some teams had quietly given up suggesting anything because nothing had changed before. Our staff survey confirmed it: only a third of people felt able to improve how they worked, and I took that personally.

TI decided to build a structured continuous-improvement programme so teams could find, test and share better ways of working together across the division. I secured the director's sponsorship and a modest budget, and I made myself personally accountable for the results.

AI recruited an improvement champion from each of the six teams, chosen by the teams themselves rather than appointed by me, and I protected one day a week for the role in their objectives so the work was legitimate rather than squeezed into spare moments. I arranged training in basic improvement methods, including process mapping, root-cause analysis and simple measurement, delivered in-house by our own performance team to keep costs down and build internal capability. I set up a monthly community of practice where each champion brought one problem and one idea, and I created a shared log so ideas, tests and results were visible across the whole division. To keep momentum honest, I asked every champion to test one small change a month and report results whether it worked or not; I celebrated the failed tests as openly as the successes, because people needed to see that trying was safe. When two team leaders dismissed the programme as extra work, I visited their teams, listened to their pressures, and agreed their first projects would target the tasks their own staff found most frustrating. One of those projects, removing a duplicate spreadsheet, saved a team half a day a week and turned the most sceptical leader into an advocate. I linked the programme to our quarterly performance reviews, so improvement was discussed alongside delivery numbers rather than treated as a hobby. I brought three frontline staff to present their projects to the senior team, which raised the profile more than any email from me could have done. I tracked cumulative benefits and published them quarterly, and I made sure the champions' contribution was recognised in their end-of-year reviews. After six months I reviewed the programme itself with the champions and we changed the meeting format, which was a useful reminder that the programme should model the behaviour it promoted.

RIn the first year, the programme delivered 34 tested improvements, saving around 900 staff hours and £140,000 across the division. Idea-sharing between teams rose from almost nothing to 12 adopted cross-team practices, and 85% of champions reported higher job satisfaction in the staff survey. The director asked me to present the model to the other deputy directors in person, and two of them started similar programmes in their own areas the following quarter.