The ward desk was one queue, one number series, and a wait of an hour and a half on a Sunday morning. Everybody stood in the same line whether they wanted a twenty rufiyaa letter or a registry correction that needed half an hour and three documents.
Two changes were made on the same day. The queue was split into four streams, letters, payments, permits and everything else, with separate number series and a staff member fixed to each. And the last two hours of the working day were taken off the counter entirely and given to twelve booked appointment slots of ten minutes.
The measured result over six months: the average wait fell from about eighty minutes to twenty two, and the letters stream runs at about ten. The number of people turned away at closing time went from around nine a day to under one.
What went wrong first. The appointment slots were empty for five weeks, because they were only bookable by telephone and the telephone was answered by the same staff who were on the counter. Putting the booking on this site fixed it in a fortnight.
The cost of the whole thing was a printer for the number tickets and two signs.
