Making Lemonade at ELGL’s Camp Gov Life
- Lauren Dodge
- Nov 3
- 2 min read
Camp Gov Life is here! And if we are to lean into the be a kid again theme, then what’s more classic than a lemonade stand?
This year, Partners in Public Innovation (PPI) set up a Lemonade Stand - not to sell you sugar water, but to show how you can take the sour lemons of government work and turn them into sweet wins.
What Are “Government Lemons”?
You know the ones:
Hiring that takes forever.
Procurement that needs 40 signatures before you can even post an RFP.
Permitting where no one fills out the forms correctly, leading to an endless back-and-forth email thread.
They’re sticky, sour, and make you scrunch up your face just thinking about them.
The Secret Recipe
Now, these lemons are big. So big that you would need a magic wand to solve them all at once. A quick IT plug-in or org chart revamp won’t solve these overnight. In fact, these kinds of changes without thought and planning can make the problems worse. So how do you take a giant lemon of a problem and turn it into something better?
You shrink the change.
In the process improvement world, that means finding one small, doable step—a squeeze—that makes a difference. We recommend a tool called a JDI form. JDI = Just Do It. Pick one little fix you can make quickly, without waiting for a whole system overhaul.
Making lemonade works the same way:
Pick a lemon - Hiring
Squeeze it - What do you have immediate control over? Maybe you’re in charge of scheduling interviews.
Add a little sugar and water - Make a simple improvement like creating an email template to schedule interviews.
Boom—you’ve got something refreshing - Your interview scheduling email now takes a fraction of the time to write.
A Lemon Example
Picture this: you work in permitting. All day long, people call, frustrated: “Why does this take so long?!” You know the process would move faster if everyone just started with the right form.
So your JDI? Move the right forms to the front page of your website, or make your intake checklist clearer. With one small squeeze, everyone’s got a taste of lemonade instead of chewing on straight lemons.
Served Lemons, but We Made Lemonade
Our time at Camp Gov life was great. We met inspiring government professionals who have found unique ways of improving the service they provide in their communities. City Manager Maraskeshia Smith showed us that getting physically out into the communities allows us to see firsthand what people are doing and where needs exist. Panels of city leaders shared anecdotes of times they tried and failed, and how continuing to try inevitably leads to a win.
We know that improvement takes time, energy, and perseverance. We are grateful to live in a world where people like the professionals at ELGL are working to make our cities better for everyone!
At the end of the day, making the government better doesn’t have to be sour. It can be sweet, simple, and just a little campy.
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