Defining a product in government digital services is crucial, as it serves as the means through which a service is delivered to the public, and understanding its attributes ensures effective and continuous improvement.
Ad Hoc has found that product operations can help scale impact by putting objective indicators at the center of product decision-making. The team has seen success in supporting product thinking at agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), where they made it easier for Veterans to access employment and education assistance and for caregivers to receive needed support.
Modular contracting doesn’t just mean that you break one procurement into several pieces. This article shows you how to take a modular approach with a single contract divided up into natural break points.
Nava built flexible and reusable software and design components to make it easier for Vermonters to access their benefits. These components support Vermont’s long-term vision of integrating eligibility and enrollment processes for all of the state’s healthcare and financial benefit programs.
This booklet is designed to help procurement officers and other stakeholders ensure continuity of service, enable seamless future technology upgrades, and plan for contingencies. You can use it to evaluate a prospective vendor contract or bid, or to document how a project went.
Inclusive design means making design choices that take into account personal identifiers like ability, race, economic status, language, age, and gender. This resource walks folks through an introduction to inclusive design, focusing on accessibility and equity.
A modern system that helps people learn about, apply for, and gain access to affordable housing. Bloom Housing is an open source platform that digitizes the process of finding and applying for affordable housing, turning a time-consuming paper process into a 15 minute activity from one's smartphone or computer.
PolicyEngine US is a Python-based microsimulation model of the US tax and benefit system. It models federal individual income taxes (including credits), major benefit programs, and state income taxes (currently in six states). The PolicyEngine US package can be used as a Python package, via the PolicyEngine API, or via the policyengine.org web app.
In response to COVID-19, the Workers Lab and Steady developed the "Income Passport" to streamline gig workers' unemployment benefit applications by pulling income data directly from gig platforms and financial accounts. This tool reduced manual verification time, helped prevent fraud, and improved workers' access to full benefits, with successful tests in Alabama and Louisiana demonstrating significant time savings and improved service delivery.
The Policy Rules Database (PRD), developed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the National Center for Children in Poverty, consolidates complex rules for major U.S. federal and state benefit programs and tax policies into a standardized, easy-to-use format. This database allows researchers to model public assistance impacts, simulate policy changes, and analyze benefits cliffs across various household scenarios using common rules and language across different programming platforms.
