Three Young Improvers on their current consultancy project

Britt Lardée, Jelmer Veldman and Wouter Bruel are all three working at Improven. The 'Improvers' talk about the assignments they carry out and what their work as consultants looks like.

Britt Lardée

For me, working as a consultant means a job with a lot of variety. Currently, I have two assignments, at the Tax Office and at the CFP.

At the Tax Office, I work with a team of finance consultants, with whom we carry out the 'Financial Fit' project. In it, we map the financial processes, among other things, through desk research, workshops and interviews with key stakeholders. We also identify the risks, control measures and possible areas for improvement for each process. A great challenge in which I can learn a lot from my experienced colleagues.

At the GVB, I deal with the implementation of portfolio management in the IT domain. This is an assignment in which I mostly work in the office, but can also be in a tram workshop with steel noses on. The IT portfolio initiatives thus become directly visible in the product. I also had the opportunity to contribute to the drafting of the IT annual plan, which defines the long-term vision and strategy for the IT domain.

In addition, I conduct a Data Driven Decision Making scan at the CFP. This scan was developed by Improven. It is a survey that measures organisations' maturity level in data analytics, ultimately resulting in a report with a baseline measurement and concrete recommendations.

Jelmer Veldman

In my first year as a consultant at Improven, I carried out assignments at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Martini Hospital and the Ministry of I&W. Since August last year, I have been working at Schiphol as a Data Steward. Schiphol's ambition is to create the world's most sustainable and high-quality airports. Quite an ambition, with data-driven work being an important means to achieve this goal.

A huge amount of data is available at Schiphol, for example aircraft movements or data from sensors and information systems. As Data Steward, I am active in the Data Quality Management Team. This team is part of the Data, AI & Analytics domain and is responsible for data collection, data analysis and data reliability.

I am currently mapping the data from the central flight information system. The next step is to draw up quality rules and dashboards for this data in a short time in pressure cookers, which are sessions with the process manager. With this, I support data quality measurement, data visualisation and data quality improvement. The improved data quality has an impact on AI (reliable forecasts and simulations) and BI (reliable reporting).

Ultimately, the aim is to improve Schiphol's services in this way. Examples include shorter waiting times for passengers (at check-in, passport control and baggage belts), flights that depart more often on time and a more efficient (sustainable) use of the Schiphol buildings.

What I like about this assignment is the collaboration and coordination with different departments and the translation of data into information using dashboards. In addition, in this assignment I get the chance to make an impact and further improve Schiphol's services.

Wouter Bruel

After some great assignments, I joined Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO) in September 2020. At this government agency, I fulfilled several roles within the PIANOo/TenderNed department.

First of all, I worked with a colleague from Improven to redesign the Internal Operations team - the team responsible for supporting all primary processes. The main aim was to get a grip on the processes and bring more structure to them.

In this redesign, we introduced agile working methods and recorded work in the workflow management tool JIRA. This gave us insight into the work stock and enabled us to prioritise work, making us more responsive to customer requirements.

We also mapped all supporting processes and reduced lead times by minimising error margins and automating activities.

After this assignment, I joined TenderNed (the Dutch government's procurement platform) as a consultant. In this role, I support TenderNed's Chief Product Owner in recalibrating the vision and strategy for 2022 - 2026.

To collect the wishes and ambitions, I organised workshops with the internal staff and key stakeholders. It was very instructive to work together interactively on the future of the organisation.

I also held several interviews with knowledge holders within RVO, the Ministry of Economic Affairs & Climate and the Ministry of the Interior to gain insight into their strategy and the opportunities and challenges in digitalisation and data-driven work.

Based on this input, we are working on a vision, strategy and associated action plan including roadmap to realise these ambitions. The nice thing about this assignment is that I am both developing the strategy and preparing the implementation.