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Lean Local Government: Using Lean Startup Principles to Empower Government Employees & Improve Resident Satisfaction, Kelly McAdoo, City of Hayward, CA
The document discusses the implementation of lean startup principles by Hayward, California, to address the issue of compulsive hoarding, which affects up to 1.4 million people in the U.S. It highlights the challenges faced by city officials in resolving the problem due to legal and resource constraints, and the team’s efforts to gather insights through customer interviews. Ultimately, the lean startup process helped save resources and improve the engagement between residents and city government, emphasizing the importance of testing assumptions before investing in solutions.
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Lean Local Government: Using Lean Startup Principles to Empower Government Employees & Improve Resident Satisfaction, Kelly McAdoo, City of Hayward, CA
- 1. Lean Local Government IfHayward can, why can’t your city or your organization? Lean Local Government: Hayward, California
- 3. What if youaren’t San Francisco or New York City?
- 4. Aerial map ofBay Area with Hayward logo on map where Hayward is Hayward is here
- 5. 80% of theU.S. population lives outside of the 100 largest cities.
- 6.
- 7. Maximizing Scarce Resources Youcan’t get blood out of a stone.
- 8.
- 9. Up to 1.4million people in the United States display compulsive hoarding behaviors.
- 11. Test Assumptions Interviewed customersto gain empathy and discover pain points Findings Limited pain; resolution in hands of client; new diagnostic health model needed; low priority First Responders, City Staff, Adult Protective Services, County Health, Residents Our Customers Idea/Assumption Hoarding is a problem we need to address now and City X has a solution we think might work for us The team embarked on the Lean Start Up process.
- 12. “We can fixthe hoarding problem, but not the person.” “Without illegal activity, there’s nothing for us to really address.” “We have no way of following up with these people, and no resource to offer.” CODE ENFORCEMENT
- 13. “Everybody was atthe table, and hoarders said ‘thanks, but no thanks.’” “They’re not legally incompetent, so we can’t force them and it’s not a top priority.” “There’s a clinical treatment, but our staff aren’t trained.”
- 14. Staff: 10 personInterdepartmental Task Force Time: 15 months Hours: 2013
- 15. Staff: Four personteam Time: 3 Months Hours: 166 Lean Innovation Process (166 Total Staff Hours, 3 Months) businessasusual
- 16. Test Assumptions Interviewed customersto gain empathy and discover pain points Findings Limited pain; resolution in hands of client; new diagnostic health model needed; low priority First Responders, City Staff, Adult Protective Services, County Health, Residents Our Customers Idea/Assumption Hoarding is a problem we need to address now and City X has a solution we think might work for us The team used the Lean Start Up process and saved several hundred thousand dollars of resources.
- 17. No solution turned outto be better than investing in the wrong solution.
- 18. And we’re usingthe process to improve our customers’ experience interacting with their City government! Lean Start Up is also shaping our approach to improving employee engagement
- 19.
Editor's Notes
- #2 Hi my name is Kelly McAdoo and I am a government bureaucrat…but seriously though I am the CEO and City Manager for the municipal corporation of Hayward, California with 870 employees. For most people, local government is a mystery or something you just don’t ever think about unless your faucet doesn’t produce water, that traffic signal never turns green, or worse yet, your house gets broken into or you have to call 911.
- #3 For most people, local government is a mystery or something you just don’t ever think about unless your faucet doesn’t produce water, that traffic signal never turns green, or worse yet, your house gets broken into or you have to call 911. Local government touches more lives every day than pretty much any other business in the world. So why then do we get a pass from adhering to modern business practices? Lean Start Up principles can provide government agencies with a methodology to break out of our traditional culture with the most irrefutable currency in our industry – resident input and feedback.
- #4 So why is this important? If you are a city with the scale and resources of a San Francisco or New York, you can throw lots of money and people at innovation and solving problems. However in my city with its constrained resources you really need to find a way to disrupt the culture in order to develop innovations that will be successful and lasting.
- #5 We are located in the San Francisco Bay Area and have about 150,000 residents. According to statistics, many more people live in cities on a scale like the one I run. And the smaller the community, the less resources we have and the more important culture change centered around innovation becomes.
- #6 According to the National League of Cities, the largest 100 cities only contain about 19% of the US population. That means 80% of the population lives in the other 19,394 cities. Yes, you heard me correctly – 19,394, which may be another problem we want to discuss. Giving these local governments a tool like lean start up could prove to be immensely powerful. Lean Start Up principles can give local governments a methodology to create culture change so we can improve resident satisfaction, empower our employees, and maximize scarce resources.
- #7 Lean Start Up principles can give local governments a methodology to create culture change so we can improve resident satisfaction, empower our employees, and maximize scarce resources. I am going to spend the next few minutes talking about how the City of Hayward has been working with our friends at Moves the Needle to learn these processes. And I want to focus on maximizing scarce resources because to me, this is where lean startup can add the most value.
- #8 And I want to focus on maximizing scarce resources because to me, this is where lean startup can add the most value. If there is one thing we don’t have a lot of in local government, it is resources. Whether it is time, people or money, we are always trying to do more with less. So sometimes it is important to figure out what we aren’t going to focus on. Lean Start Up has helped us do this.
- #9 So I’m guessing some of you may have watched or heard about the tv show Hoarders. This is actually way more common in our communities than you might think. And it creates significant challenges for public safety first responders, mental health providers and people who live near these homes.
- #10 According to statistics, approximately 700,000 to 1.4 million people in the US display hoarding behaviors, which is often a symptom of more significant psychological problems. In Hayward, some of our neighborhood preservation staff had responded to these homes but they didn’t know the extent of the problem in the community. They did think it was a problem that needed to be addressed sooner rather than later though.
- #11 They did think it was a problem that needed to be addressed sooner rather than later though. After going through our first lean start up training, a team decided to take a deeper dive into the hoarding issue using this methodology especially after some particularly negative local press around the issue.
- #12 The team started with a premise that this was a very big problem for first responders and that a solution they had heard about from a neighboring community might be the right approach for our community as well. What they found was something pretty unexpected. When they started doing their empathy interviews, they uncovered that first responders didn’t encounter the problem as often as they thought, the solution that City X had implemented didn’t actually work because the underlying mental health issues weren’t being addressed.
- #13 When they started doing their empathy interviews, they uncovered that first responders didn’t encounter the problem as often as they thought, the solution that City X had implemented didn’t actually work because the underlying mental health issues weren’t being addressed. And when they talked to the County mental health providers, they hadn’t received the critical training needed to deal with the referrals they were receiving.
- #14 The real aha moment for our team came when they identified the savings they had achieved by not implementing City X’s solution right now. In our typical problem solving process, a staff team would be convened, they would brainstorm solutions, pick one and spend 8-12 months developing and refining the solution, and then rolling it out, often with limited success or participation. When the hoarding team estimated what they would have spent on developing that program for our city, they realized that 10 staff members would have spent over 2,000 hours and 15 months to implement a solution that wasn’t going to ultimately solve the problem.
- #15 When the staff team estimated what they would have spent on developing that program for our city, they realized that 10 staff members would have spent over 2,000 hours and 15 months to implement a solution that wasn’t going to ultimately work. Instead of 15 months, the team spent three months doing empathy work and discovered that the County staff hadn’t yet received the appropriate mental health training to deal with referrals the new program would have made.
- #16 Instead of 15 months, the team spent three months doing empathy work and discovered that the County staff hadn’t yet received the appropriate mental health training to deal with referrals the new program would have made. Now City staff are tracking data on hoarders so that when the County has implemented the training, we know who needs to be referred. We put this project on the back burner in March, recognizing it wasn’t a priority right now. We just heard from the County a couple weeks ago and because of our work, they have pulled together 4 County agencies to focus on developing the training necessary to support the cities in the County on the hoarding issue.
- #17 We put this project on the back burner in March, recognizing it wasn’t a priority right now. We just heard from the County a couple weeks ago and because of our work, they have pulled together 4 County agencies to focus on developing the training necessary to support the cities in the County on the hoarding issue. To me, giving people tools so that they can determine the appropriate priority areas to allocate resources to is an amazing outcome.
- #18 To me, giving people tools so that they can determine the appropriate priority areas to allocate resources to is an amazing outcome. And we determined that at that moment in time, choosing the option of no solution will ultimately lead to better outcomes than investing in the wrong solution. This is just one important example of how we have been using lean start up methodology to help our city prioritize where to spend limited resources.
- #19 This is just one important example of how we have been using lean start up methodology to help our city prioritize where to spend limited resources. Using this process is also helping us improve our customers’ experience with their City government and is improving our employee engagement and empowerment.
- #20 At the core, Lean Start Up is a methodology tailored to private enterprise. I would suggest though that it presents a fundamentally different and better way for government to do business and will lead to organizations that feel more empowered and to residents who are more satisfied in their interactions with us. Trust me when I say that we still have a long way to go but I am so proud that my organization has come along with me on this journey.
- #21 Trust me when I say that we still have a long way to go but I am so proud that my organization has come along with me on this journey. Just think of the possibilities if more government agencies adopted these principles as part of their tool boxes.