Bridging People and Benefits Systems

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Ben Sheldon Engineering Manager @bensheldon

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

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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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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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$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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GetCalFresh Closing the SNAP participation gap in California

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

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● 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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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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The past 18 months

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

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Version 0

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Version 1 → →

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Version 1.1 → →

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→ → → →

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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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“ [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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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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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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The past 18 months

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XKCD at Scale

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

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A week in the life...

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A week in the life... Drive Time

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A week in the life... Drive Time

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

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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...