iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Janet Lunde @janetlunde.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

I worked on product development engineering projects for 30+ years. You need to do root cause analysis to solve problems thoroughly. Under Mayor Gainey, Pittsburgh has been doing that. One pilot project to improve worker safety also saved $10M! pittsburghquarterly.com/articles/see...

Worker Safety – The goal is zero harm for city workers. In just two years the worker harm rates have gone down by a staggering 59 percent in the pilot department (DPW) and 31 percent across the entire City workforce. This means roughly 100 fewer City workers are being hurt each year, respecting their humanity, leaving more people to perform vital city services, and saving pain and cost for all. Money is not the object, but driving safety also saved the City almost $10 million over two years in paid claims, resources that can be used to better meet resident needs.

People, as they often do, jumped to expensive solutions instead of solving the problem. “If we bought a more powerful truck we could have powered through the skid.” But leaders trained in root cause problem solving instead led the hard work of solving the real problem. “WHY, on this patch of road, on this day, was it so icy our truck skidded off the road?” They went with their workers to the site and discovered the road was covered in ice because water was pooling there. Water was pooling because a culvert under the road was blocked. The culvert was blocked because it was overgrown by vegetation. And it was overgrown by vegetation because there was no standard work for preventively clearing drainage culverts.

Within hours this culvert was cleared, eliminating risk not only for City trucks, but for all drivers who use this road. Within days teams found everywhere else in the city where these conditions existed. And within weeks, standards were created to preventively clear culverts, so this root cause would not hurt to anyone in the City again.

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Janet Lunde @janetlunde.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Under Mayor Gainey, "The City of Pittsburgh achieved Gold Certification from What Works Cities, a Bloomberg Philanthropies and Results for America program that certifies cities for leading with best practices in using data and evidence to inform decisions." Find the root cause, then address it!

pittsburghquarterly.com

Seeking a Safe, Welcoming and Thriving Region - Pittsburgh Quarterly

It was a snowy day in Pittsburgh in 2024 when a City truck slid into a guardrail. No one was hurt, but it caused risk and damaged the vehicle. Asking “why” yielded a typical answer, “duh, it was icy.”...

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