In recent years, with the leadership of the Digital Agency, the digitization of government operations and systems has been advancing. However, this area remains unfamiliar for many people, with much of it still obscure to recognize. This time, we spoke with WiseVine Inc., which is driving change in the government sector through a product focused on budget formulation.

Kai Yoshimoto | CEO, WiseVine Inc.

After specializing in energy and climate change policy at Nomura Research Institute, Kai engaged in consulting for policy-making for domestic and international governments. Alongside his main job, he lectures on climate change policy to local government officials from developing countries at Keio University. Recognizing the challenges in resource allocation within the government, he founded WiseVine in March 2018.

Mariko Iizuka | Product Designer, WiseVine Inc.

A designer and director of digital products and services, Mariko specializes in B2B services, with extensive experience in information design and UI. She has often been involved with startups in their early stages, with a motto of “doing what is necessary for a service to grow.” She joined WiseVine in February 2023.

The budget formulation system “Build&Scrap” that evolves with government administration

── First, could you tell us about WiseVine’s product, “Build&Scrap”?

Kai: “Build&Scrap” is a system designed to enhance the PDCA cycle of budgets related to policies and projects in national and local governments, thereby streamlining their operations. The system aims to promote policy planning (“Build”) and the consolidation or elimination of projects (“Scrap”). It is primarily used by finance departments responsible for budget formulation and execution management, as well as by senior management such as governors and deputy governors.

── Why is it called “Build&Scrap” instead of the more common “Scrap&Build”?

Kai: There are two underlying intentions. The visible one is the belief that the opinions of the on-the-ground staff, who initiate projects to solve problems, should be prioritized. For governments to take on new challenges, the departments within each municipality must secure funding and commercialize projects. Instead of the typical approach of first scrapping unnecessary projects to free up funds, we believe the process should be to first build the desired projects and then scrap others, considering the budget limits.

On the other hand, the hidden intention is to link this approach with the “framework budgeting” used in government.

Framework budgeting refers to the method where the estimated financial resources for the next fiscal year are pre-allocated to each department according to certain rules before the budget formulation process begins. Each department then autonomously drafts its budget proposal within that predetermined framework. (Source: https://jichitai.works/article/details/268)

Kai: This system, where each department can independently manage within the given budget, represents the essence of consensus-building and is, in our view, the only way to ensure the healthy renewal of government projects. In “Build&Scrap,” we incorporate this idea by allowing departments to prioritize the projects they want to pursue, designating their budgets as sacred, and systematically reducing the funding for other projects that are deprioritized as a result.

── What led you to focus on budget formulation in the first place?

Kai: When I was involved with the Yokohama City government, they pointed out that their growing number of projects made it difficult to manage the budget effectively. In the private sector, you can identify underperforming projects through profit and loss statements or balance sheets and address them accordingly. However, in government, there’s essentially no such thing as a “wasteful” project. As long as even one person benefits, you can’t simply stop a project. This reality was quite shocking to me, as I had initially thought that supporting the on-the-ground staff would be enough. However, I realized that support was needed on the management side instead.

── If existing projects can’t be stopped, it must be challenging to secure budgets for new projects.

Kai: Even so, for the government to evolve, it’s crucial to find ways to allocate budgets to new directions and use those funds efficiently.

Currently, about 40 trillion yen (around 30% of the total budget) of the national budget is consumed by medical and nursing care costs for the elderly, while the portion allocated to education-related expenses is around 5 trillion yen (about 5%). Imagine the impact if even 1 trillion yen could be redirected from medical and nursing care costs toward education for the future. The GIGA School Program provided PCs to Japanese children, and even if you provided PCs to all students aged 6 to 18, assuming 80,000 students per grade level at a cost of 50,000 yen per PC, it would total 480 billion yen. The annual flow would be 40 billion yen. Simply put, if we could invest 25 times that amount in children every year, the scale of innovation would be enormous.

Because the budget formulation is essentially the mechanism for redistributing collected taxes, I believe it’s an area that deserves focused attention.

Discovering the deep-rooted paper culture beyond expectations

── How do you approach the design process?

Mariko: The basic flow is similar to that of other industries. I joined about a year ago, and I started by gathering information from internal resources and literature, and by listening to Kai’s ideas and concepts. From there, I sketched rough drafts to translate those ideas into the product. We also engaged with domain specialists to catch up, went through several rounds of brainstorming, and deepened our understanding through feedback. That’s how we’ve been progressing.

── In what aspects did you notice the unique characteristics of government operations?

Mariko: I’d say the fact that paper is still central to communication. To get approval, you need to circulate documents and get them stamped, repeating this process multiple times. If there’s any objection raised at some point, you have to start over from the beginning. Even though they need to navigate through complex approval flows, everything is still done on paper.

Kai: This can lead to situations where the numbers on the master budget request document held by the finance department don’t match the numbers on the master document held by the department responsible for each project. In most cases, you wouldn’t think that paper-based work is essential for carrying out tasks, but budget formulation in government is still done on paper, making manual cross-referencing absolutely necessary. Build&Scrap is designed to solve this problem through systemization.

One function, one design can influence billions in decision-making

── What do you prioritize in product development?

Kai: The most important thing is to keep it simple. Even if you build complex functions from the start, if they don’t fit well with the actual operations, they are not useful. I believe it’s better to create a simple foundation, run it once, and then increase the resolution based on the feedback you receive.

That said, product managers often receive numerous feature requests from customers. Build&Scrap improves operational efficiency by combining several features. While I want to keep each function as simple as possible, it’s not easy to translate the complexity of our customers’ work into features. By having product managers, designers, and developers think together about the customers’ challenges and the value the system can offer, we can deliver a high-quality system.

── What kind of design requests have you received from customers?

Mariko: Since most of our customers have been working with paper-based processes for a long time, they sometimes ask for layouts that mimic paper. However, this isn’t always necessary for a web system. We should be designing the layout based on upstream issues and objectives. When a layout mimics paper too closely, it might prevent the web system from fully realizing its potential value, so I make sure to have thorough conversations whenever I have concerns.

Kai: Currently, most of the work is based on Excel spreadsheets, so implementing it as a web system means developing a new user experience (UX). With around 800 features needed, it’s not realistic to consider UX for all of them, so we sometimes initially design it to mimic Excel.

Mariko: At first, we create a prototype that leans towards OOUI concepts and usability, but as discussions progress, there are inevitably requests like, “We’re really attached to the current layout…” In such cases, we try to find a compromise that incorporates their requests while considering both sides’ intentions.What we prioritize is understanding the background and reasons behind their preferences by asking, “Why are you doing it this way?” Sometimes, it’s just a matter of tradition, but usually, there’s a reason behind it, and we make proposals based on that understanding.

── What kind of reasons have you encountered?

Mariko: For example, a feature “scrolling function” allows users to switch between the data of multiple projects seamlessly. Initially, I thought this feature wasn’t necessary because users could simply dive into the details of each project from the list view, check the information, and then return to the list. That should have been enough.

But as we talked more, I realized this feature was a top priority for them. Currently, they prepare several thick binders, each about 10cm thick, and flip through the pages while conducting feedback sessions and reviews. They wanted to replicate that experience digitally.

Kai: Our initial thought was, “Why not just switch between the list and details or open multiple tabs?” But that wasn’t sufficient. The issue is that the department heads, such as finance directors, who would use this scrolling function, have minimal time. We came to understand just how critical every minute and second is for them. The urgency of how a feature’s presence, appearance, and quality can influence the approval or rejection of projects worth billions of yen is something that, despite our close daily interactions, we’re still learning about.

Mariko: I realized that we didn’t fully grasp what was truly important, how high the stakes were, how much time these tasks took, and the frustration they caused. On the other hand, it’s also rewarding to be involved in a product with such a significant impact.

Considering the diverse stakeholders beyond the compromise

── I understand you’re using an agile development approach, but does that fit well with creating government systems?

Kai: There’s inevitably a gap between the precise and sensitive understanding that product managers develop from daily interactions with on-the-ground voices and the general sense of agile development that engineers typically have. Agile development in this context is incredibly challenging, especially when dealing with features like the scrolling function, which could have billion-yen impacts.

── How do you determine the priority of features and the compromise point in design while addressing the customers’ urgent needs?

Mariko: In my opinion, no matter how ideally a designer brings a UI concept to life, it’s meaningless if it’s not used. On the other hand, even if we settle for a compromise that says, “For now, this will do,” if we can learn about the operational background and the client’s perspective during that process, it can inform our next steps. Instead of aiming for the best possible outcome in a short-term sprint, we’re exploring compromises that allow us to proceed while embedding learning and improvement for the future.

Kai: Ultimately, it comes down to whether the job can be done. If there’s no alternative, that feature becomes a high priority. If it’s cumbersome but doable, and there’s a workaround, it becomes a secondary priority. And if the request is more about aesthetics, it’s treated as a lower priority.

── So are there aesthetic requests?

Kai: Yes, there are. From a startup perspective, such requests usually have to be deprioritized. However, we’re also working on a national system now, and considering that the general public will ultimately see it, it’s not so simple. When a wide range of people with varying levels of digital literacy are using it, the focus tends to shift from the core logic of the product to the surface design that catches the eye, like colors and styling. We can’t afford to neglect these aspects because if the design disappoints stakeholders, it could be seen as a failure of our mission.

Mariko: Many aspects differ from the typical startup logic, and I often find myself reflecting on moments when I’ve misjudged priorities. In addition to the finance department and other departments we regularly interact with, I make it a point to gather insights from feedback and keep in mind the broader range of stakeholders affected by our decisions.

Kai: The government officials we work with are taking risks and persuading others to collaborate with us, so I feel a strong responsibility to integrate these considerations into our product development. By understanding the various traditions and constraints that bind government operations, and delivering a product that satisfies their needs, we aim to fulfill our vision of evolving alongside government administration.

Envisioning the ideal government and embedding it in the product

── How have your past experiences influenced your current development approach, and how are they being applied?

Kai: There was a time when another product I was working on wasn’t doing well, and a government official bluntly told me, “You need to understand people’s pain and create something that makes your customers happy”. That advice led me to develop a financial visualization system for Yokohama City’s finance department, which became the foundation of Build&Scrap. Even back then, I had envisioned a system that could cover a broader range of operations, and the success of that initial project opened the door to developing the full system, which has brought us to where we are today.

Creating what is needed is, of course, essential. But it’s not just about listening to customer requests and replicating their current operations. It’s about deeply thinking through what the ideal future state should be and embedding that vision into the product.

── As a designer, what excites you about working on the Build&Scrap product?

Mariko: Even though we’re working in the GovTech domain, we have an environment where it’s easy to gain domain knowledge and feedback, which allows us to create a truly useful product. Being able to have direct conversations and deepen our understanding of the work lets us refine the product, which in turn expands the value we can offer as designers. I’m driven by the hope that my work will make my own life and the lives of those around me better, and contribute to a better world. I want to continue pursuing this with that motivation in mind.

── Finally, could you share your vision for the future?

Kai: We’ve had many former government officials join WiseVine, and I think our focus on valuing domain expertise is what enables us to create products with a deeply considered user experience.

Currently, we’re exploring how to modularize private sector management systems like SAP and adapt them for government use. Budget formulation is not just about money, it’s about the allocation of resources including people. In the future, I believe our work will extend into personnel assignment management, procurement systems, and asset management. Elevating the management of government operations is our vision moving forward.

Related Links
WiseVine Co., Ltd
Build&Scrap