Keeping the Customer in Mind: Lean Startup in Local Government

One of Lean Startup’s founding principles is always keep the customer in mind. Most people tend to think of “customers” as someone who’s buying a product, but that’s only one scenario. All organizations have what I call “internal customers”-- employees who are going to use whatever process or product the company implements. Government has customers, too: the people it serves. I love this story about how one local government used Lean Startup to serve its constituency better.

The City of Hayward, CA was about to buy $90,000 of software and planned to spend a year implementing an online business permitting application process. On paper it seemed like a great idea; modern and technologically savvy.

But before taking the final leap, a team trained in lean principles and methodology decided to further evaluate the decision before the city took the plunge. Their first step was to go out and talk to their customers, local business owners. Once they did, they discovered that Hayward's business owners weren’t actually very concerned about being able to file an application online. They weren’t feeling frustrated by a trip to City Hall to register in person.

But they did have another issue they wanted solved. They were confused about license requirements, which was a problem before they ever even made the trip to City Hall to start the process because they didn’t know what information to bring with them. What they actually wanted was an application they could download and fill in before bringing it to City Hall to submit.

After hearing their concerns, the team redesigned a portion of the website to include an application form that could be printed and either brought to City Hall or mailed. Simply asking their target customers what they wanted brought huge savings to the city and more satisfied customers. Instead of spending a significant sum to build the wrong product, they spent less money and built the right one.

As Kelly McAdoo, Hayward’s City Manager, says: “In local government we’re here to listen to the public and be responsive. I’ve always done a lot of reading about innovation and have thought about how it might apply to local government. It seems like exactly what government should be thinking about-- the coupling of customer empathy with rapid experimentation. That really resonates with me.”