Bridging People and Benefits Systems

Transcript

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2. Ben Sheldon
   Engineering
   Manager
   @bensheldon
   

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3. We are making government
   work, starting with people who
   need it most.
   

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4. We believe
   Services can be simple, accessible, and easy to use.
   Outcomes can be measurably better.
   Better can cost less.
   We can serve everyone with respect and dignity.
   

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5. Principles and practices
   that make change real
   A learning community
   that makes change stick
   Show what’s
   possible
   Help
   others do it
   themselves
   Build a
   movement
   Government services
   so good they inspire
   change
   What we do and how we do it
   

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6. $42B
   To have impact at
   scale, government
   programs must work
   better than they do
   today. Charitable contributions
   towards safety net
   Making government programs just 10% more effective
   would be bigger than all charitable spending.
   $470B
   Spent on government safety net programs
   

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7. GetCalFresh
   Closing the SNAP participation gap in California
   

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8. 45-55 minutes to use
   $800M to build
   $80M/year to maintain
   Applying for SNAP in California
   

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9. ● 8 minutes to complete
   ● Works on any device, no download
   (50%+ of clients use mobile)
   ● Considerate of limited data plans
   ● Written in plain English & Spanish
   ● Live chat for questions
   ● Customized user flows for specific
   populations / exemptions
   Making sure applicants
   have what they need
   

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10. GetCalFresh reach
    CA Counties
    34
    Applications in
    August
    17,700
    People helped in
    August
    35,000+
    ...and growing
    People helped
    all-time
    400,000+
    

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11. The past 18 months
    

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12. The GetCalFresh Team
    Product
    Manager
    Program
    Director
    Program &
    Partnerships
    Research &
    Design
    Client
    Success
    Engineering
    

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13. Version 0
    

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15. Version 1
    → →
    

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16. Version 1.1
    → →
    

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18. →
    →
    →
    →
    

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22. How we did it...
    ➔ Staging environments for every remote system
    ➔ Strict validations for every form input that maps to the
    corresponding county system inputs.
    ➔ Bulletproof parsers for names, addresses, etc.
    ➔ A comprehensive test library of every possible image,
    document, and file format in the world today
    ➔ ML-powered circuit breakers and job schedulers
    

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23. How we did it...
    ➔ Staging environments for every remote system
    ➔ Strict validations for every form input that maps to the
    corresponding county system inputs.
    ➔ Bulletproof parsers for names, addresses, etc.
    ➔ A comprehensive test library of every possible image,
    document, and file format in the world today
    ➔ ML-powered circuit breakers and job schedulers
    ➔ Test in production
    ➔ Embrace manual workflows
    ➔ Leave automation till the end
    

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24. “ [The] paradox of increased overall control
    through letting go a bit seems paradoxical
    only because our normal way of thinking
    about control is mistakenly static: it is not
    development or process-oriented because
    it leaves out the dimension of time.
    — Peter Elbow, Writing Without Teachers
    

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25. Example: Document Processing
    ➔ Convert PNGs and JPGs to PDF
    ➔ Convert TIFFs to PDF
    ➔ Reduce large file size PDFs
    ➔ Convert DOCX to PDF
    ➔ Validate password protected PDFs
    ➔ Validate broken PDFs with missing EOF marker
    ➔ Validate massive housing documents (e.g. leases)
    ➔ Normalize mixed-orientation PDFs
    ➔ Convert interlaced PNGs to PDF
    ➔ Convert BMPs to PDF
    ➔ Convert Multipage TIFFs to PDF
    

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26. Example: Document Processing
    ➔ Convert PNGs and JPGs to PDF June 6, 2016
    ➔ Convert TIFFs to PDF April 19, 2017
    ➔ Reduce large file size PDFs September 15, 2017
    ➔ Convert DOCX to PDF September 19, 2017
    ➔ Validate password protected PDFs January 18, 2018
    ➔ Validate broken PDFs with missing EOF marker June 29, 2018
    ➔ Validate massive housing documents (e.g. leases) July 2, 2018
    ➔ Normalize mixed-orientation PDFs August 17, 2018
    ➔ Convert interlaced PNGs to PDF September 24, 2018
    ➔ Convert BMPs to PDF September 26, 2018
    ➔ Convert Multipage TIFFs to PDF TODO
    

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27. The past 18 months
    

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28. XKCD at Scale
    

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31. The “Wobbly Stool” model
    Improve client
    experience & outcomes
    Improve automation
    Manually submit
    client applications
    

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32. How we did it...
    ➔ Staging environments for every remote system
    ➔ Strict validations for every form input that maps to the
    corresponding county system inputs.
    ➔ Bulletproof parsers for names, addresses, etc.
    ➔ A comprehensive test library of every possible image,
    document, and file format in the world today
    ➔ ML-powered circuit breakers and job schedulers
    ➔ Test in production
    ➔ Embrace manual workflows
    ➔ Leave automation till the end
    

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33. A week in the life...
    

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34. A week in the life...
    Drive Time
    

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35. A week in the life...
    Drive Time
    

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36. March 6, 2017
    June 1, 2018
    April 17, 2017
    

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40. Our support system
    ➔ Recognize that safety and reliability is human work
    ➔ Talk through our natural tendencies towards
    catastrophizing and perfectionism
    ➔ Maintain a dependable backlog
    ➔ Have a consistent prioritization process
    ➔ Trust (and coach) team members to balance their time
    ➔ Constantly reinforce why we’re building this system...
    

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42. We can’t make
    government work
    without YOU.
    (Literally.)
    

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