Buried in this story about the University of Delaware’s partnership with the state court system to create a fellows program for graduate students is a most interesting point:
In 2014, the judicial branch entered a 10-year partnership with the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics to improve court operations using private-sector techniques.
As part of the effort, many in the courts were trained in Lean Six Sigma, a methodology focused on removing waste from the processes. The courts said this helped save the judicial branch and partner agencies more than 4,250 staff hours.
Courts have been looking to private sector organizations for management techniques for a century, when Chief Justice Taft began infusing the federal courts with “executive principle.” But until this story broke, I was admittedly unaware that Six Sigma techniques were being applied directly in state court systems.
More background on the court-university partnership is here.
The Interdependent Third Branch 