Piloting (digital) change
Enterprise-wide software projects can be a painful, drawn-out affair. There are never-ending constraints on time, technology is constantly shifting, and budgets are never big enough for the best solution.
Local governments face the added challenge of needing to balance rigorous laws around procurement, access, and governing body sign off that can take an already lengthy process and extend it for years. We hear the same concerns repeatedly from cities & towns:
How can I tell what software solution do we pick?
What if we spend a ton of money and the thing doesn’t work?
This is overwhelming and it’s budget season/ I’m short-staffed/ I don’t have the time to launch a major RFP.
To anticipate these concerns, we took a pricing model that’s common in the private sector and adapted it to government —the ability to setup and launch processes on CityGrows with zero upfront cost.
CityGrows minimizes financial risk to your agency and professional risk for you.
One of the big benefits of our pricing model is that you can start small- with just one permit, license, or process. Of course you could launch dozens of processes on the platform overnight, and transform all of your digital services in a week (!) but in our experience, it is far more beneficial to roll out online services — or any organizational change — bit by bit.
Here’s what we’ve seen working best for successfully rolling out any new government software when you are facing internal resistance:
High impact, self-contained pilot process
Pick a contained process with relatively low visiblity and low conflict. Don’t try digitizing all of your property taxes or parking ticket payments overnight. A good place to start is a process that is straightforward. You want your staff (or your boss — if you’re an analyst trying to pitch innovation, for example) to be comfortable with where you’re starting. Volunteer applications and feedback forms are two great processes to pilot.
An ideal pilot process that has a steady drip of demand so that you can get valuable feedback and make tweaks to your response along the way. Think about the user groups you’re serving: can you offer online pothole reporting and service requesters?
Pothole and sidewalk street service requests is a great pilot process because problems get reported consistently, giving your team an opportunity to fine tune your response. Additionally, online reporting delivers an immediate improvement in customer service.
When things go well after a high visibility process is moved online, it becomes much, much easier to pitch the high volume or contentious issues like dog licenses or parking permit requests.
Other great pilot processes:
Street closure, special events and block party permits — make it easy to celebrate in your community with an online block party permit process.
Public Records Requests — reduce costs and frustration with an electronic system to receive and respond to public records requests.
Police Citizen’s Academy Applications — when outreach is critical, online services become more important. Connect with your community by offering online applications for your police & citizen’s academies.
Sign up for a CityGrows account and test out a sample process today.
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