This makes me inordinately angry. The NYC Digital Service used an in-house team to build an agile, iterative, user centered, open source solution for this in 3 months, with a concrete plan to roll out 500+ services within the first 3 years. 1 week from MVP release, we got pulled off of this to hand it over to contractors because we "weren't moving fast enough". And then they spent 2 years and $100 million to not release any meaningful value? <Insert string of expletives here>. Yes, this is an exceptionally difficult problem to solve anywhere, and NYC is a particularly gnarly beast. But how has there been no incremental value released to the people of NYC? This was a generational opportunity for NYC to lead the nation and create something truly impactful for the people of this great city. Never has the term "have you considered Salesforce" cost the people of this great city so much. https://lnkd.in/esWK7Aub
Prof. Bent Flyvbjerg another example for your database!
Jukay Hsu
2w
This is wild Justin. Would love to learn more about your experience
Chris Whong
2w
😬 We never learn.
Matt Gross
2w
Oh man, I feel you. So maddening. So, so wasteful.
Rotem Abeles
2w
History doesn't repeat but it definitely rhymes...
😡
You've experienced this, but you still don't see the people behind the curtain and what they do?? It was initially done in house because the people in charge thought you would move slowly and produce bad results, which is their modus operandi: spend a lot of money on time so it looks like they're trying, but don't actually solve the problem, so they can campaign on solving the problem next time. You weren't pulled because you were moving too slow. You were pulled because you were actually producing results in a reasonable time frame; you were messing up their plans. Same thing in California with the homeless population: a cost of almost 200,000 per unit - not per house, per UNIT!! - & they are still unoccupied because the money is laundered instead of actually going to fix the problem.... I hope this experience helps the scales fall from your eyes.
Public Servant | Data Expert | Inclusion Champion
2wGoodness. Does the NYC Digital Service still exist?