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Bridging People and Benefits Systems

Bridging People and Benefits Systems

Ben Sheldon

October 04, 2018
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  1. View Slide

  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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  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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