Resource Format: Article: Blog
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Procurement Delivery-Driven Government: Principles and Practices for Government in the Digital Age
Technology enables governments to engage in “pilot” projects to see where they are headed and course-correct along the way, as opposed to evaluating the results over the course of multiple years. Delivery-driven government utilizes technology and “pilot” projects to see institutions and processes through the eyes of users, allowing for more effective service delivery.
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Human-Centered Design Safety Net Services Built for Outcomes
Code for America helped expand GetCalFresh (a service that guides Californians through the SNAP application process and helps government deliver food assistance to people in need) from a small pilot into a statewide service. They also recently concluded a similar pilot in Michigan along with Civilla and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
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SNAP Online: A Review of State Government SNAP Websites
There is significant variation amongst states’ SNAP websites and their online services. This report summarizes the types of services available and which states offer them.
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Policy Analysis COVID-19’s Impact on the Social Safety Net
California’s SNAP program faced record application volume due to the COVID-19 crisis, and other states must anticipate similar demand. This post summarizes key takeaways from GetCalFresh’s real-time data and client communications, and offers recommendations for how other states can implement effective responses.
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Digitizing Policy + Rules as Code Implementing rules without a rules engine
It is frequently assumed that when rules are implemented as code, a rules engine is necessary. However, it is possible for policy people and engineers to effectively work together to code logic that drives technological system without needing a mediating rules engine at all.
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Procurement Prerequisites for modular contracting
18F describes modular contracting, the process of breaking up large, custom software procurements into a small constellation of smaller contracts. Modular procurement requires agile, product thinking, user-centered design, DevSecOps, and loosely-coupled architecture.
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Digitizing Policy + Rules as Code What is Better Rules?
Better Rules utilizes multidisciplinary teams that include people skilled in policy, legal, business rules, programming, and service design working together in an iterative fashion to develop rules. Several outputs are produced using this approach, each offering an opportunity that can be fed back into that iterative process and re-used to solve other issues.
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Human-Centered Design Cell Phones as a Safety Net Lifeline
Eligible people struggle to maintain their case status for critical safety net services, often due to administrative hurdles and poor communication. Code for America piloted text message reminders to support Louisianans, which helped clients avoid costly churn. Text messages are an underrated, efficient solution for human service agencies to meet client expectations and improve case outcomes.
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Human-Centered Design UX research during crisis: understanding rapidly evolving user needs to inform responsive design
Important considerations for understanding user needs to inform responsive design in rapidly changing contexts are discussed, including how context, threat perception, decision-making, and crisis affects disaster management and UX research.
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Digitizing Policy + Rules as Code Rapid Implementation of Policy as Code
Policy changes are often dynamic and occur quickly, but they can only create impact once implemented. The Eligibility APIs Initiative at 18F shares an example from their work that shows the potential for rapid, accurate policy implementation as code.
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Digitizing Policy + Rules as Code Exploring a new way to make eligibility rules easier to implement
Programs like Medicaid and SNAP are managed at the federal level, administered at the state level, and often executed at the local level. Because there are so many in-betweens, there is significant duplicated effort, demonstrating the need to simplify eligibility rules to facilitate easier implementation.
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Policy On the Myths of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
Though the rhetoric of “waste, fraud, and abuse” is ubiquitous when it comes to welfare programs, low-income households receive little relief from benefits programs. Most efforts to make public benefits systems more “efficient” actually just waste time and money in practice. They instead serve to stigmatize low-income families and chip away at the little assistance that remains available to them.