How the Lean Startup approach could have prevented the Democratic Iowa caucus disaster

The havoc lasted a couple of days, keeping the candidates and voters in uncertainty. This was a serious warning to the whole software industry and all modern societies. We are used to seeing the software we use on a daily basis as safe and trustworthy. However, it seems that even such meaningful events can be ruined by bad decision-making.

Today, we know that the Iowa caucus incident could have been easily avoided. The first mistake was made by the organizers of the event who insisted on basing the election process on an app that had not even been introduced to users previously. The second error lies with the software company that released an application that was probably developed contrary to the basic principles of lean startup. Why do I think so?

Most of the problems could be avoided if the Build-Measure-Learn loop we know from the lean startup approach had been applied.

I know.

It’s very easy to criticize from a safe and comfortable position far away from the center of these events.

Moreover, it’s unfair to jump all over the company that created the voting app if we don’t know all the details.

We are very proud that we could help the amazing people of Polco to create such an interesting and useful app. Especially because the Polco team and Boldare share a similar vision of software creation, understanding the lean startup approach and using scrum as the main framework.

The UX and UI were extremely important for the company stakeholders and Boldare’s quality and expertise in this area was one of the reasons why Polco chose us.

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