Book notes organized by Chance in Ontario, Canada (December 2023)

<aside> 💡 The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently. —David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules

</aside>

• Book URL
• Excellent interview with author (on Ezrea Klein pod)

Introduction: Beyond Schoolhouse Rock

• On the gap between policy intentions vs actual outcomes
• Tech startups create high standards for UX
• Policy vs implementation
• On Game of Telephone
• Why this topic is important

Part 1: The Waterfall

1: ARCHEOLOGY

<aside> 💡 When we speak of “legacy systems” in government, it does not mean simply that they are old. It means that we are grappling with the legacy of decades of competing interests, power struggles, creative work-arounds, and make-dos that are opportune at the time but unmanageable in the long run.

</aside>

• On archeology layers: tech debt & multiple systems
• Example of expenses to modernize gov tech systems
• Bureau of Consular Affairs example
• IRS example

2: SEVENTEEN YEARS

<aside> 💡 Like a hoarder, government rarely throws out the old to make room for the new.

</aside>

• Riffs on her experience looking into the claims process debacle
• On IRS example
• Conundrum for public servants
• Caveat of tech modernization

3: CONCRETE BOATS

• Origin of manifesto of agile
• On Waterfall Development in gov
• VBMS anecdote
• Do not attribute malice…

4: Friendly Fire

• On gps story
• On healthcare.gov application debacle
• Culture eats policy for breakfast & too-many-damned-requirements

Section 2: Mechanicals at the Gate

5: The Kodak Curse

• US Gov involvement in early computer industry
• Origin of UX design?
• US gov transition to outsourcing IT
• Kodak Curse aka outsourcing trend anecdote
• Gov went all-in on outsourcing
• Drowning in paperwork
• Riffs on why gov should build in-house IT capacity

6: Operational in Nature

<aside> 💡 Policy people tend to see those who implement the policy decisions they make as being far below them in the pecking order, perhaps even at the bottom of it.

</aside>

• Policy vs Implementing
• On UK’s government digital service (GDS)

7: Stuck in the Peanut Butter

<aside> 💡 Essentially, the APA used nineteenth-century (or perhaps medieval) thinking to try to solve a twentieth-century problem, which has snowballed in the twenty-first century.

</aside>

• Intention vs Outcome
• infamous SNAP form
• Need for Product Managers in gov
• User Research is lowkey illegal
• Brief history of the administrative state
• Judicial framework + informal routes reality
• Peanut butter anecdote

8: The Procedure Fetish

<aside> 💡 It is sometimes the very efforts to ensure equity that contribute to the lack of it.

</aside>

• Old engineer joke
• Ezra Klein on environment movement suing / stopping gov
• On procedure fetish
• Vomiting policy into forms

Part 3: User needs, not government needs

9: The Fax Hack

<aside> 💡 Much of the time, it’s not even the eligibility that keeps a client from getting the benefit—it’s the need to persist through all the forms, interviews, documentation, and phone calls.

</aside>

<aside> 💡 As Jake puts it [US tech gov worker], “Our services disdain those they are envisioned to help.”

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• Gov needs vs User needs

10: BYRNE’S LAW

<aside> 💡

The author Michael Lewis once said, “You never know what book you’ve written until people start to read it.”

</aside>

• On Product Management in gov
• Why healthcare . gov failed
• On Byrne’s Law
• On Gall’s Law
• Phased-rollout approach vs waterfall
• “You can have either one site in English that works or two sites that don’t”
• Burial Plot anecdote
• Why gov REALLY needs product managers

11: The Insiders

• Empathy example