In the summer of 2009, City Manager Jim Keene held a series of town hall staff meetings to measure the satisfaction and engagement of the employees. Several organizational change themes emerged from these meetings. In reaction the ideas, City Manager Keene implemented the Design Thinking model developed by Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO. As described by in his book Change by Design, design thinking is a “collaborative process by which the designer’s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people’s needs with what is technically feasible and a viable business strategy. In short, design thinking converts need into demand. It’s a human-centered approach to problem solving that helps people and organizations become more innovative and creative.”

The two formal programs, New Employee Orientation and E2 Forum, were selected for several reasons. Primarily, the ICMA recommendations highlighted the importance of the welcome and entry into an organization as the point where we as an organization would have the most impact in establishing and presenting the culture. Yet, we recognized that we could not welcome and orient new employees only to have them enter a work force that was not aligned with the organization’s new values and worldview. Therefore we decided that the middle of the organization needed to understand our goals and objectives. This led to the creation of the E2 Forum for Management & Professional which exposes mid-level managers and professional employees to new ideas, perspectives and thoughts.