Reflections and Recommendations

The My File project’s most essential ingredient is the trust that was nurtured and sustained by project partners. While the journey has certainly not been linear and direct, it demonstrates a bright spot in the delivery of a critical government service, a viable alternative to the status quo of purchasing software from a vendor. Through multi-stakeholder collaboration, mission-driven nonprofit organizations can partner effectively with governments to deliver human-centered, impactful solutions that meet people’s needs.

Delivered an Open Solution to a Common Challenge

Every government wrestles with how to effectively, efficiently, and safely improve access to programs and services. We focused on the goal of delivering a mobile-first, open-source solution that improves access to services and strengthens the provision of programs without creating a digital-only environment to meet beneficiaries where they are and provide ease of use and access for all involved. We paid attention to historic blockers in government tech, procurement limitations, legal concerns, and cyber requirements to develop a system that works for the clients and the public servants administering the programs.

Forged Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration in the Public Interest

We worked openly and collaboratively, and we identified other change champions with cross-functional resources, experience, and interest. DIGI serves as a thought partner and a not-for-profit innovation driver with different learning objectives than private sector actors developing closed systems. We could access various subject matter expertise and informed research, including lived experiences. User testing helped us identify process friction early, ensuring that the tool was both accessible and intuitive. Working with NYC Opportunity, a nimble office with the mandate to incubate new interventions driving economic mobility, allowed partners to focus on what they could bring to the table for effective development. This flexibility helped the project to progress faster, cost less, and circumvent delays typical of government procurement processes.

Well-Suited for Philanthropic Support

We started small in scope and designed a pilot that was doable before determining next steps. The collaboration was instrumental in gathering valuable insights and validating the potential for My File to function in a complex public ecosystem. Contractual, political, and organizational constraints sometimes hamper agility in govtech, but the project’s commitment to iterative practices ultimately allowed us to refine the product effectively. Maintaining a clear vision for the goals of the product and access to philanthropic support helped us navigate these challenges and maintain momentum.

There are always things that can be improved when a project is assessed with a retrospective lens. We identified a few decisions that made sense with respect to managing costs, capacity, and resources but now strike us as areas we could have approached differently.

Scalability

Our initial focus was to build for our partner jurisdictions. We did not focus on scalability, which caused some challenges later on.

A critical issue was that v1 was not optimized for scale or replication. As a result, we spent significant time retrofitting v3 of the system into something that can be adapted by other jurisdictions. This effort could have been mitigated if scalability, openness, and flexibility had been prioritized from the outset in addition to focusing on the proof of concept. However, that approach may have required far more resources.

The initial plan was to collaboratively build for both New York City (NYC) and Baltimore. The idea was to deliver core code that each city could customize and use. However, from the start, the two cities had different plans and significantly different needs. NYC requested full control of the code and offered technical talent to manage and customize it. Baltimore preferred more of a vendor-style managed service. These differences made it difficult to deliver a single solution that worked for both. Eventually, the My File solution gained more traction in NYC, and so the solution became built for NYC. This meant that the solution could not directly be spread to other jurisdictions and required abstraction (generalization), for example, of variable names, images, and processes, for another jurisdiction to use it. We addressed this challenge by white-labeling the code.

What’s interesting is that the My File project was able to establish a high degree of trust in both Baltimore and New York by assessing each jurisdiction’s needs and designing a solution to meet those needs while addressing a common goal. That meant that the first proof points were more likely successful because the collaborations met the cities where they were. It’s easy to imagine a world in which we approached Baltimore and New York with a white-labeled version that was not customized for either of them and subsequently gained no traction. Solving for NYC allowed the development of a strong proof point that we can now turn toward scaling, however onerous, and that meant we did not build for scale from the start. On the other hand, if we had started with a generalized solution, we may never have gotten the first proof point.

Interoperability

My File is dependent on an infrastructure platform, which means it is not truly interoperable across all infrastructure stacks without refactoring.

The system is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud services. This has benefits, and it makes sense when developing a proof of concept, but it raises challenges if a city or agency wants to use My File outside of an AWS ecosystem. Ideally, the system wouldn’t have operating dependencies.

Workflow

Due to resourcing constraints, we were not able to use a continuous team to work on My File. This led to a pattern of discontinuities in workflow that posed some challenges.

Ensuring a continuous and iterative development process enhances efficiency and alignment with best practices in building user-centered digital services within government. My File was influenced by the nature of philanthropic funding, which was provided in varying amounts and at different intervals. This made it challenging to sustain a full-time product team (product manager, engineers, user experience, research) through various stages. The COVID-19 pandemic compounded these complexities. Additionally, the mechanics of recruiting and retaining technical talent within government, along with securing continuous full-time funding for such roles, presented further hurdles. Philanthropic funding allowed us to augment development capacity with contractors. This flexibility was helpful for resource conservation and progress, but it also introduced new challenges, including longer timelines.

Code Documentation

We could have documented the code more thoroughly, which would have made the effort to scale and replicate across jurisdictions far more straightforward.

Comprehensive documentation from the beginning is essential for replicating projects like My File NYC in other contexts. Open-source best practices of documenting from the start isn’t always in reach for time- and resource-crunched engineers, as much as we wish it had been.

My File’s potential for effective replication needs to be considered alongside potential implementers’ desired use case and existing systems, technical infrastructure, and capacity. But there are clear reasons that it is a strong contender for replication by any city or agency exploring improvements in service delivery.

Customizable Modularity

One of the most important technical takeaways is the undisputable value of modularity. Modular design—especially in elements such as the authentication model and data management—should facilitate troubleshooting and scaling, making the system more flexible for future implementations. We like the “community layer” aspect of the solution. It can work across current systems (which tend to be focused on a single government program or service, run by a single department), making it far easier to customize for different use cases.

Definitive Proof Point

“If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere” is applicable in the civic tech space. The implementation of My File NYC demonstrates the proof of concept is valid by ensuring that residents’ documents were protected with the highest standards of privacy and security. This use case gives additional legitimacy for a potential replication. For some cities or organizations exploring replication, New York’s implementation may feel out of reach given its size and resources. However, the pilot in NYC was small and well-defined, and the solution can aid in different environments regardless of size and internal technical talent. There are ways to customize My File to reflect the realities on the ground, so smaller cities and organizations should not let NYC be a deterrent on that front.

Ease of Deployment and Cloud Infrastructure

My File leverages modern cloud technology, which is ideal for governments modernizing public services. Unlike traditional on-premises systems, cloud solutions follow a pay-as-you-go model, cutting capital costs while dynamically allocating resources based on demand. This flexibility is crucial for services with fluctuating usage. Additionally, cloud platforms obviate the need to maintain physical infrastructure, shifting security, compliance, and updates to specialized providers. By utilizing cloud technology, governments can deploy My File faster, strengthen cybersecurity, and enhance accessibility, all of which strengthen service delivery.

Assessment of Needs, Capabilities, and Outcomes

We recommend starting with an initial assessment that considers specific use cases, internal champions, available resources and constraints, and how the tool supports broader goals. This assessment will provide a foundation for understanding what is feasible. Successful system design, development, implementation, and ongoing support hinge on deep understanding of stakeholder needs, capabilities, and desired outcomes, as well as thorough planning and architecture. Further research and planning will be needed to guide implementation, including costs, timelines, technical setup, testing, training, and clear roles and responsibilities.

Specifically, conditions for success include:

• Identified need and meaningful scope for My File: Know how it can help achieve programmatic goals.
• Commitment to strengthen public services backed by research and design from the partners working to provide those programs: For example, with the NYC deployment, PATH is a supportive and collaborative partner that deeply understands the nuances of accessing and delivering services.
• Capacity and resources for sustainability: This could be in-house or with a trusted vendor. Either way, an internal project team should be empowered to champion the work, related requirements, and manage resources.

Customization for Effective Delivery

Building digital services within the context of an implementer’s specific needs and capabilities necessitates customization for effective delivery of policy and public programs, and adapting a digital public good is one way to do so efficiently. It skips the reinvention of the wheel step, but how to get to that next step isn’t well mapped out for governments, and there are choices.

• The most direct route would be to fork the repository and customize it for a well-defined pilot deployment. If the proof of concept version is successful, the host can continue to customize or scale as needed.
• If multiple jurisdictions band together as a cohort, it may be more effective to maintain a stewarded core code so that all versions benefit from system updates.
• It is conceivable that some sort of nongovernmental entity, such as an academic institution or a nonprofit, could manage, develop, and push the growth of open-source digital public goods, including My File.
• Alternatively, a forward-thinking government entity could do that, too, though it may find offering shared services to be a way around some of the obstacles of digital public goods (e.g., capacity/capability).
• A private sector entity could be an option for the sustainability of some digital public goods. There are many examples of technology companies that operate profitable businesses utilizing open-source projects (e.g., Red Hat/Linux or Google Chrome/Chromium).

Each replication path has pros and cons, depending on the level of control and customization required by a jurisdiction. Forking would be the most independent option and allow for the most flexible reuse. For example, a jurisdiction could take modules of My File without necessarily using the entire system. However, once forking is done, the code is no longer in sync with the main open-source repository and would no longer receive updates from it. Working in a stewarded or community model would require more coordination and fidelity to the main branch of the project but would allow for continued connection for updates and revisions to be done together collaboratively.

Leveraging replicable open-source solutions may take time, but it doesn’t have to be daunting. Stakeholders—whether governments, public IT and program delivery teams, funders, tech providers, the nonprofit civic tech ecosystem—can all be pushing for greater transparency, interoperability, and collaboration through open data and open-source projects. Several key actions could support the use of open source in public administration for better service delivery and innovation.

• Reimagine public procurement to be open, accessible, and competitive.
• Support internal technical and administrative capabilities and capacity. Adopt open data policies for the government and promote data sharing and reuse across agencies while ensuring privacy preservation and security in software initiatives.
• Streamline secure and efficient routes to establish eligibility for services in addition to connecting people directly with those services.
• Identify flexible funding streams. Many civic technology pilots have roared to successful starts but fell into disrepair as funders and the project contributors alike realized that the funding would need to continue to support the project itself as well as the ongoing scale and potential for replication.
• Incentivize trusted multi-stakeholder collaborations. The partnerships that supported My File provided a layer of expertise that supplemented the internal capabilities of Baltimore and New York, helping to bridge gaps in product management, development, and other key areas. Include civil society partners that have a clearer mandate to serve as a trusted sounding board and solution finder that isn’t trying to upsell a solution.