Rebuilding From the Ground Up: Human Capital Business Process Re-Engineering at DART.

About the Client

DART serves the Dallas–Fort Worth region through an extensive network of light rail, commuter rail, and bus service, carrying roughly 165,000 riders on a typical weekday and more than 52 million riders annually as of 2025. Like many transit authorities, DART now operates under sustained budget pressure — its board approved service reductions for 2026 aimed at closing an $18 to $24 million annual budget gap — making an efficient, well-run Human Capital function more consequential, not less, than when this engagement began.

Industry Context

DART’s HC struggles were not an isolated case. TransitCenter’s widely cited “People First” report found that DART itself accepted roughly 300 employee retirements during the pandemic and emerged with about 500 vacant positions — a concrete, DART-specific illustration of a workforce crisis that has since become an industry-wide emergency. A 2022 survey by the American Public Transportation Association found that 96 percent of transit agencies reported workforce shortages, with 84 percent saying those shortages affected their ability to operate service. The industry’s response has increasingly centered on treating HR as a strategic, board-level function rather than a back-office one — precisely the shift toward a redesigned, best-practice HC organizational structure that Iknow helped DART build in 2016, years ahead of the crisis fully unfolding. By 2026, transit HR leaders are extending that same strategic focus further, with APTA’s Workforce Summit exploring how AI can support workforce planning and HR solutions — capabilities that depend on the well-documented processes and organizational clarity this 2016 engagement established as a foundation.

Current Situation

DART’s HC Department entered this engagement without documented, consistently followed business processes, an organizational structure aligned to its actual workload, or confidence in its compliance posture. DART’s leadership recognized that only a comprehensive, structured initiative — reengineering processes, documenting policy, adopting best practices, assessing staffing, and redesigning the organization itself — could rebuild the department into a functioning strategic partner for the authority.

• A department in crisis. Years of weak leadership, headcount reductions, and staff attrition had left the HC Department unable to reliably deliver its core enterprise-wide HR responsibilities.
• Undocumented, inconsistent processes. Core HR functions spanning benefits, compensation, talent acquisition, training, and transaction processing lacked consistent documentation, making it difficult to know how work actually got done, let alone improve it.
• A misaligned organizational structure. The department’s structure had not been designed around its actual processes, workload, or the best practices modern HR organizations depend on.
• Open compliance questions. DART faced uncertainty around its compliance with federal, state, and local HR-related laws and regulations, including an open FTA complaint and unresolved implications from an FTA circular.
• The need for a fundable plan, not just a diagnosis. Any recommendations had to be concrete and credible enough for HC leadership to secure the funding and organizational support needed to actually implement them.

• Conduct a thorough diagnostic review of the HC Department’s processes, practices, and organizational health.
• Document current-state (“as-is”) HC business processes and develop future-state (“to-be”) recommendations, including automation and system configuration opportunities.
• Design a new HC organizational structure aligned with redesigned processes and industry best practices.
• Assess DART’s compliance with relevant HR-related federal, state, and local laws and regulations.
• Develop a concrete implementation plan, project portfolio, and timeline that HC leadership could use to secure funding and resources.

How Iknow Structured the Work

Iknow organized the initial engagement into five workstreams, moving from an extensive diagnostic phase through process documentation, organizational redesign, compliance review, and finally a facilitated planning process that converted findings into a fundable implementation roadmap.

Key Activities & Decisions

• Diagnostic Review. Iknow conducted 46 interviews across two stakeholder groups — internal customers of the HC Department, including nearly all of DART’s senior leadership team, and HC Department staff themselves — using two customized interview guides, with sessions ranging from 30 minutes to more than two hours and second-round interviews where warranted. In parallel, the team reviewed DART’s policies, practices, SOPs, systems, and internal controls.
• Current-State and Future-State Process Documentation. Iknow conducted detailed analyses of DART’s 34 SOPs and 89 automated DARTnet workflows, including undocumented processes and practices. Iknow then developed comprehensive information and decision flow diagrams — such as the Job Requisition Workflow and the process for adding or upgrading a position — to capture exactly how work moved through the department and where it could improve.
• New HC Organizational Structure. Iknow designed a new organizational structure aligned with the redesigned business processes, incorporating best practices including alignment of structure with process, high-performing work-centric teams, and a flattened span of control.
• Compliance Review. Iknow analyzed DART’s compliance with federal, state, and local HR-related laws and regulations, reviewed DART’s Administrative and Hourly Employment Manuals, examined DART’s response to FTA Complaint No. 13-0163, and studied the implications of FTA Circular 4704.1.
• Implementation Plan and Timeline. Iknow planned and facilitated a half-day offsite workshop at SMU’s Cox Executive Education facilities to discuss improvement ideas and develop an implementation roadmap and timetable, ultimately producing a portfolio of 21 projects for the initial implementation wave.

Stakeholders & Collaboration

Iknow engaged directly with DART’s Board of Directors, senior leadership team, and HC Department staff throughout the diagnostic and design process, culminating in close collaboration with the Vice President of Human Capital to shape a roadmap she could take directly to DART’s leadership for funding.

Getting an Honest Picture of a Demoralized Department

A department that had endured years of poor leadership and attrition risked either defensive reticence or fragmented, inconsistent accounts of how work actually happened. Iknow addressed this by interviewing both HC’s internal customers and its own staff separately, using tailored interview guides, flexible session lengths, and follow-up interviews where needed — producing a complete, credible record rather than a surface-level assessment.

Mapping a Massive, Partly Undocumented Process Landscape

With 34 SOPs, 89 automated workflows, and an unknown volume of undocumented practices, the risk was missing exactly the informal workarounds causing the department’s problems. Iknow addressed this with systematic, detailed analysis of every documented process alongside explicit attention to undocumented practices, producing full decision-flow diagrams for core processes like job requisitions and position upgrades.

Turning a Diagnosis into a Funded Plan

A report identifying problems would not by itself rebuild the department. Iknow addressed this by dedicating a full workstream to implementation planning, facilitating a focused offsite workshop that translated findings into a concrete, 21-project portfolio DART’s VP of Human Capital could use to make the case for funding.

Operational Outcomes

• Delivered a complete diagnostic record based on 46 stakeholder interviews and a detailed review of DART’s HC policies, practices, SOPs, systems, and internal controls.
• Delivered current-state and future-state process documentation, including detailed workflow and decision-flow diagrams for core HC processes.
• Delivered a new HC organizational structure incorporating best practices in process alignment, team design, and span of control.
• Delivered a compliance assessment covering DART’s Employment Manuals, an open FTA complaint, and applicable FTA guidance.

Strategic and Organizational Outcomes

Iknow’s recommendations and roadmap were enthusiastically adopted by DART’s Vice President of Human Capital, who used them directly to secure resources and funding for implementation. The resulting 21-project portfolio included initiatives such as redesigning the employee recruitment process, updating DART’s Hourly and Administrative Employment Manuals, relaunching the People Center, developing an HC data analytics and reporting function, and building a formal HC records management program. This gave DART a concrete, funded path from diagnosis to a rebuilt, strategically positioned Human Capital function.

Timeline to Impact

Iknow completed the diagnostic review, process documentation, organizational redesign, compliance review, and implementation roadmap within the five-month engagement, with DART’s HC leadership moving directly into securing funding for the first wave of implementation projects upon completion.

Core Skills

• Organizational Design
• Business Process Re-Engineering
• HR Transformation & Strategy
• Regulatory Compliance Advisory

Methods & Frameworks

• Structured, dual-track stakeholder interviews
• SOP and automated workflow analysis
• Process flow and decision-diagram development
• Offsite workshop facilitation and project portfolio planning