Turning the Ship: Bringing Faster, Leaner Technology to Government
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The NYC Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications is undergoing a major shift, using new technologies and unconventional approaches to better serve City partners and the millions of New Yorkers who depend on them. This presentation will shed light on the ways that an enormous government organization is working to become more agile, responsive, and contemporary to better get the job done. Following the presentation, NY1’s Josh Robin will conduct an on-stage interview with Dominic to learn more about these challenges and successes. Dominic Berg, Associate Commissioner, NYC Gov Lab & Studio City of New York's Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications
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Turning the Ship: Bringing Faster, Leaner Technology to Government
- 1. Turning the supertanker: Bringing faster, leaner technology to government @nycdoitt nyc.gov/doitt
- 4. Agile Human Centered Design Prototyping DoITT’s new methods
- 5. Embrace client-centricity Take a lean approach to everything we do Eliminate boundaries in how we work Find ways to innovate DoITT’s new direction
- 7. WordPress Customer journey maps Visualizations Service blueprints Storyboards More… DoITT’s new tools
- 8. Affordable housing City information Youth development Emergency preparedness Public safety Financial empowerment More… Where DoITT makes a difference
- 9. Case study: Deferred Comp
- 10. Labor Relations: Deferred Comp
- 11. Case study: 311 Mobile App redesign
- 12. NYC 311: Mobile App redesign
- 13. Case study: NYC Open Data
- 14. NYC Open Data
- 15. NYC Open Data
- 16. NYC Open Data
- 17. NYC Open Data
- 18. We are adapting
- 19. NYC Behavioral Design Team Service Design Studio & Toolkit NYC Gov Lab & Studio HCD & Agile Workshops Government x Design Contract Design Coordination Meeting Mayor’s Office of Technology & Innovation NYC’s user-centric product development
- 20. Cultural shift DoITT reorganization DoITT’s catalysts for change
- 21. If we want things to be different, we have to do things differently DoITT’s catalysts for change
- 22. Munintrapreneurs
- 23. Dominic Berg Associate Commissioner NYC Gov Lab & Studio dberg@doitt.nyc.gov @nycdoitt nyc.gov/doitt
Editor's Notes
- Hello and good morning! My name is Dominic Berg Assoc. Comm. at CoNY DoITT Until asked to speak as CoNY leader about “how we are reaching our customers,” never thought to compare bureaucracy that NYC Gov Lab & Studio goes through to a lean start-up. However, DoITT has been increasingly challenged to deliver quickly for our customers For too long the tech industry has been changing at an exponential rate while DoITT wasn’t. BUT, we are now retooling to be be more in synch with our customers needs . And we are trying to turn this Supertanker of NYC government so we can reach our customers better. <click next slide—NYC Gov Lab & Studio>
- DoITT was formed in 1994 and comprises 1,500 employees, so there is a lot of inertia and sailors on this ship. Group I run is NYC Gov Lab &. Studio—5 mos old. Part of larger re-org of DoITT’s 9 divisions. Comprises: 5 groups; Been put together to continue pioneering user-centered and iterative approach on our projects that we started 4 years ago. Working to break down functional silos so we can prototype and test solutions for business problems in a matter of 2-3 months rather than 1-3 years to roll something out. In other words, we are trying to figure out how to be the intrapreneurs we apparently are according to The Lean Startup book. <Next slide click slide 3 for orange Screen with snowflake>
- HOWEVER, the municipal government really is a special snowflake when you stack it up against other sectors that have intraprenuers. Whether it is: variable budgets, civil service laws that impact our talent flow, procurement rules that tie both hands behind our back, competing visions from various agency heads, quickly shifting political and civic events felt at the local level, or changing administrations and visions; <click for munitraprenuers> figuring out how to navigate the mammoth municipal government of NYC puts my team in a special category of intrapreneurs that I think of as “munitrapreneurs.” Those of us who are intrapreneurs in a municipal government sector. I know it doesn't roll right off the tongue, but go ahead, say THAT 3 x in your head. <Click for slide 4 – just DoITT’s new methods>
- At DoITT we have two main customer bases: Other agencies who need IT support Constituents of NYC: residents, businesses, or visitors. 4 yrs ago our agency customers were applying peak pressure to deliver faster and we were working hard to shed the moniker “Don’t DoiTT.” <click—Agile> My team at time started cross functional initiative to implement Agile Scrum Significant first step to make service delivery to our customers leaner A year into its implementation, coincidentally started learning @ Human-Centered Design, “HCD.” <click—HCD> Briefly explain HCD, it is a framework with methods and tools that promote: A highly collaborative, visual, hands-on, user-centered research approach to deeply understand users’ needs, challenges and behaviors; We find patterns, develop ideas for solutions, and focus on a minimum viable product to prototype our ideas; We had no idea that Agile and HCD methods were going to be two incredibly perfect compliments to learn and execute projects with at the same time. <click Prototyping> With prototyping, it has provided a faster and more precise method for delivering usable products, which I will talk about a few in minutes. <next slide 5—DoITT’s new direction and leave blank screen up>
- Beyond methods, there is a cultural change in play too. As I eluded to before, DoITT’s Commissioner fully recognizes that as technology has changed at breakneck speeds, DoITT has lagged behind in significant areas and this HAS to change. So late last year, DoITT started going through the largest re-organization since I arrived 14 years ago. What’s really big about it is the vision that underlies it. NYC Gov Lab & Studio is an embodiment of this vision, which is to: <click to get Embrace Client Centricity> Embrace client-centricity – meet our agency where they are and work with them to solve their business problems not just set them up with technology solutions we are only familiar with and hope they satisfy a list of requirements <click lean appr.> Take a lean approach to everything we do – we need to work differently and be adaptable such as… <click eliminate boundaries> Eliminate boundaries in how we work – explore cross-over opportunities for siloed functional areas so our teams may be more nimble, better understand one another, and allow us to test and iterate more in Agile Scrum teams <click for ways to innovate> Find ways to innovate – a new Solution Architecture team has been created as part of the re-org to do more exploration of new technologies. My group will work closely with them to keep user-centricity in mind when testing out solutions with our agency partners <click slide 6—Hybrid approach>
- Since using agile scrum and human-centered design on our projects, we have applied this hybrid approach to a # of projects over the last 3 years. <click—slide 7 title DoITT’s new tools>
- <click—to get WordPress> We are also enabling the rush to use cloud services, such as WordPress hosting, by setting up a contract that will make it easier and safer for agencies to have more independence but go somewhere vetted by DoITT. We have sharpened our tools through this work. By using: <click—CJ maps> <click--Visualizations> <click—Serv. Blueprints> <click--Storyboards> <click>To just name a few tools <click to slide 8 blank screen—Where DoITT makes difference>
- We have asked how far, and into what service areas might we apply our practice, and we have found that so far there is no limit <click—list of service areas> To show you an example of a Financial Empowerment opportunity we used our HCD framework with... <click to change to slide 9—Case: DCP>
- I would like to tell you about our work with the Office of Labor Relations and their Deferred Compensation Plan unit. Like many of our agency customers, they came to us with a solution in mind. <click to slide 10—DCP app screens>
- They wanted mobile app to get more (& younger) people to join the DCP to save for retirement. wanted fun game-like features because keeps the young people engaged and they would want to join the DCP to start putting their beer money into a 401K instead. asked them to take a step back to do an HCD exercise with us so that we could better understand the problem they were trying to solve. They agreed. We built a great prototype of a mobile app, had a great “game” idea about saving and growing and... we tested it on users, and… nobody liked it. It wasn’t just that we learned that there was a whole offline process to enroll that would have delayed an app onboarding process, but… What we really found out was that mobile apps don't get people to save, technology doesn't get people to save per se, but other people are what get’s people to save, and DCP has a terrific seminar program and recruitment rates at these seminars are through the roof. So - we failed-- in the design stage, which is very valuable and very cheap. The agency did not spend a big chunk of money to miss goal,, so it was a success. We like to share this story with people, especially our tax paying constituents outside of NYC govt. Additionally, it is an early example of the “client centricity” that is in the vision for the DoITT re-org: to help our customers solve their business problems and not just provide them whatever solution it is that they think they need or we know how to provide. We recognize that not every business problem needs a technology solution and we may not be the right end point in our customer’s journey. <click to slide 11—Case: 311 app re-design>
- We have been iterating on a mobile app for 311 over the last five years and have received a lot of feedback over time. The product team decided to do something with the more recent data using an HCD approach. <Click to slide 12—311 screens>
- Using data from an annual customer survey, behavioral science studies, feedback on the app in the app stores and from forms within the app, we created three key personas to map the journeys of each one from downloading to checking on a service request they have submitted. Personas: angry person, elderly person, and those who just want to get in and out for quick information. series of exercises intend to understand the underlying behaviors of these personas, we came up with a ton of ideas for improving the app. The elderly persona most fruitful. We added more feedback mechanisms in the redesign, options for a more seamless transition to other channels, and a visual model and cue so people can read less. Then ideas were selected and prioritized for further testing with end-users. A couple of words about this team. They have worked so closely with each other. They have evolved from “can’t do it” to “let’s try it this way.” They are always working closely to iterate on the redesign, HOWEVER we are also ramping up for the next evolution with our new CRM backend that is being rolled out over the next year and a half. <click to next slide 13—Case: O.D.>
- Another example of improving access to city information is a recent launch we had for our Open Data product <click to next slide 14—Old OD home>
- Open Data is a site for New Yorkers to access nearly 1,700 data sets from street crime to tree counts. Please visit it at nyc.gov/opendata to see how the City puts transparency into practice. Contemplating a re-branding since 2015 since portal was more about the Open Data program and those familiar with it, rather than for all of our citizens. We wanted to make it “Open Data for All” and the Civic Tech community leaders ask to re-build it with us… <click next slide 15—O.D. Home>
- And that’s what we did. two 3-hr workshops with end users who could use and benefit from Open Data in different ways. We took a collaborative approach and agreed on the goals of the workshop. Team wanted end-users to understand what Open Data for All means to “me” a person living/working in the City + secondary goal concentrating feedback channel. Google Design Sprint (GV.com/sprint) tools here to get us started. Also wanted to test how far we could scale down the workshop length. Started with buckets of research. Confirmed the workshops’ focus to be on visualizing a content strategy. Workshops validated the changes we thought were based on the feedback we’d been synthesizing. After the workshop, the next step was turning the content visualizations into a rich prototype. Got right people in the room, made decisions on the fly, created a site map and mock-up in 2 hours. My UX and front-end development team tested out a new web framework for NYC.gov; developed functioning prototype using a custom WordPress Theme in 5 days—both framework and theme will be used in the future. At same time product owner was creating the content to test. <click to next slide 16—O.D. Tutorials>
- Our UX Researcher created a test plan for testing Open Data on 8 newbies to the Open Data concept. They gave us great feedback and at the end of the tests they were able to tell us what “Open Data” is. We learned that some of the content in navigation didn’t make sense, such as Engage vs. Contact Us. Also learned people really don’t like videos explaining what Open Data is or how to use it, especially videos that have a lot of government lingo in it. <go to next slide 17—O.D. How To>
- So we created a more simple way to encourage people to just try it out as a way to teach them how to use the open data site. Felt confident that the product we were releasing in early March achieved the goal of making the content easier to find in one place and accessible to all levels of Open Data users. The Open Data community has given very positive feedback as well. After the launch we had a lot of engagement around the site and Open Data in general to expose new customers to the potential of using the site. Phase 2 will have more bells and whistles. <click to next slide 18—We are adapting>
- We are working across agencies to share best practices and tools to break down silos to serve our constituent customers more holistically. DOITT knows that to react to the outside we need to change from the inside and support our partner agencies in their efforts to do so as well. <click slide 19—NYC’s user-centric Prod Devlt list of tools>
- Across many agencies, but especially at DoITT, the Mayor’s Office of Operations, and the Mayor’s Office of Technology Innovation, we are using, promoting, and teaching user-centered product development tools both internally and to other agencies. <click for slide 21, skip slide 20 with highlights of 4 areas>
- 4 areas where this is happening are: Ops. Service Design Studio & Toolkit will provide a manual for agencies who want to apply HCD methods to their anti-poverty efforts. NYC Gov Lab & Studio applying these tools everyday. But we also provide workshops on HCD and Agile Scrum to any City employee. Way of introducing these concepts and getting them to think about how we can partner to solve their business problems. Excited about creating master services contract this Fall that opens up new market for small to large design firms to provide design and user-centric product development services to City. <click next slide 21—catalysts for change>
- This work in sum is proving to be a real cultural catalyst and is part of the force behind DoITT reorganizing to create leaner teams and.. <click slide 22—If we want things diff.>
- There’s broad recognition that if we want things to be different, we have to do things differently. DoITT’s re-organization is a concrete example of what this means. We’re not a new start-up, we need to deconstruct the barriers keeping us from adapting and attracting the right talent and building new capacities to reach our customers effectively. It is rare to truly “break-through” barriers in government. You have to methodically deconstruct them. Our reorganization is going to help us do this so that as… <click slide 23-- munitrapreneurs
- …Munitrapreneurs we can work in partnership with our agency customers to help them provide user-centered services.In other words, we're ready, willing and able to deliver the tools that make this the greatest city in the world in which to live work, and play. Thank you. <click to final slide 24-my info>
- Thank you.