In recent weeks, DOGE posted about the government’s records mine in Pennsylvania, where more than 400 million federal retirement records are stored. They claim they’ve completely digitized the retirement process—but this isn’t their victory to celebrate: The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) started digitizing this process long before DOGE got involved. DOGE also canceled existing contracts and reduced staff on the project.
Now, DOGE seems to be taking credit for work that was well on it’s way before they arrived:
- In April, NBC News reported, “In February, under the direction of DOGE, OPM staffers processed their first all-digital, no-paperwork federal retirement. The team was given a one-week goal, and it completed the retirement in two days.”
- Then, in early May, DOGE claimed to have processed “all-digital” retirements for 25 people.
The problem is, these claims don’t hold up when take a look at every step in the retirement process….
It’s likely that they’ve pulled together a minimum viable product (MVP), a term used by many tech firms to describe a short-term solution that’s the first step of a longer-term strategy. This helps build momentum, and leaves room for improvement—but it does not describe a finished product.
MVPs work when they demonstrate something is possible, and enable continuous development. They do not work when you try one thing and quickly declare victory.
Elon Musk claims that with manual processing, OPM was only able to process 10,000 retirees’ paperwork in one month. We’re looking forward to seeing the receipts about both processing times and number of paperwork processed. True efficiency means building processes and tools that work for people, and we are all for that. What we aren’t for is taking credit for other people’s work and declaring victory before you have a fully-functional application.