When you're working on a mission as vital as Recidiviz’s, the best thing your project management (PM) tool can do is stay out of the way. And for Recidiviz, that's exactly what Zenhub has done.
Since its inception in 2019, Recidiviz has rapidly scaled its operations, driving forward its mission to create a safer, smaller, more equitable justice system in the United States. As its operations expanded and the challenges grew more complex—both technically and socially—the team needed a PM solution that would help them stay agile without adding unnecessary complexity.
We sat down with Joshua Essex, co-founder of Recidiviz, to hear the full story of their incredible work and learn how Zenhub is helping them track their efforts and achieve their goals.
How Recidiviz uses technology for a safer, smaller justice system
Recidiviz is a nonprofit tech organization committed to improving the U.S. justice system by providing state government agencies with technology that identifies opportunities to help incarcerated individuals return to their communities as quickly and safely as possible.
Joshua was inspired to start Recidiviz after witnessing the stark differences in outcomes between his two cousins, who were incarcerated in different counties and received vastly different levels of rehabilitation and support.
Across the nation, hundreds of thousands of individuals are eligible for de-carceral transitions like getting out of prison and onto parole or going from onerous, in-person probation to online-only probation but haven't received them. This inaction not only unjustly diminishes their quality of life but can also increase the risk of recidivism, for example, due to unmet parole requirements.
“Our products automate the process of finding the people who are eligible for making these transitions and then automate the paperwork so that they actually happen,” Joshua explains. Recidiviz takes a strategic inside approach, signing agreements with state governments that grant them access to data, enabling them to assist those stuck in the system.
“If you invest in people, they’re more likely to succeed, but if you treat the system like a place to gather people you don’t know what to do with, the outcomes are poor,” he asserts.
Keeping processes simple while scaling
When Recidiviz began in 2019 its processes consisted of a spreadsheet linked to GitHub issues. When the pandemic hit, the necessity of Recidiviz’s mission became even more critical:
“Even early on, we knew that prison was the last place you wanted to be if there was a highly contagious airborne virus spreading. And we knew that COVID-19 breakouts in prisons would place significant additional pressure on public hospitals, too. So we started making tools that were aimed at helping states figure out how to do safe emergency releases from prison,” Joshua tells us.
At the time, they were a team of 6, so they brought on volunteers to help. But with 20 volunteers, spreadsheets were holding the team back.
Wanting to maintain the simplicity they were familiar with while scaling, they turned to Zenhub. “We chose Zenhub because we wanted as few processes as we could get away with. For a project management tool, that means choosing something that is the right level of opinionated.”
Joshua explained to us that opinionated tools cause teams to spend too much time on configurations, while overly opinionated tools cause teams to change how they build software to reflect the structure of the tool. “Zenhub fell into the ‘goldilocks zone’ for us. It has some opinions on ontology, like how Epics and dependencies work, but its opinions are all common-sense choices.”
“When it comes to processes, I like to do the most simple thing. I’m not trying to be a Kanban expert; I’m trying to drive a more equitable justice system.”
Joshua Essex, co-founder
Making cross-collaboration easy
The Recidiviz team is currently a team of about 80 people–nearly 50 of which are within engineering. Recidiviz engineering teams resemble a typical tech-structure: product manager, UI/UX designer, a team lead, several engineers, and state-specific data engineers and analysts.
In Zenhub, each team has its own workspace, so they can work closely together on the things that matter most to them. Of course, cross-collaboration is critical when it comes to putting together the big picture.
“Most launches involve work from multiple teams, which means many interteam dependencies. Spreadsheets and GitHub issues weren’t great for tracking dependencies, so the dependency function in Zenhub is important for us.”
Joshua Essex, co-founder
Having a focused workspace allows each team to customize their Kanban boards to their own unique workflow. “We have customized the way we use the Kanban board feature and made deliberate choices in terms of how we use Epics and dependencies to match the normal flow of our product launches,” he explains.
Zenhub is a happy medium for cross-collaborating while enabling team members to stay close to their core teams and pods. “Because all of our engineering teams have their own workspaces, the fact that Epics and dependencies can go cross-repo and cross-workspace is critical.”
Staying connected to the code
As a team that started working with a spreadsheet and GitHub, managing work close to the code was always necessary for Recidiviz’s processes. When it comes to integrating GitHub with Zenhub, it means the difference between recording work in their PM tool and not:
“I’ve learned that if you create a process that requires someone to manually flip a bit at some point, it just won’t get done. For example, if I told people that once a pull request is merged, they must find the right ticket and close it with the right comment, they just wouldn’t consistently do it.”
Joshua Essex, co-founder
Zenhub’s native integration with GitHub means that information is synced between both tools, and teams can use their actual GitHub issues directly on their Zenhub board for minimal manual updating. “Our project management works because it's connected to our version control. If it weren’t, it would break down.”
As a bonus, the team loves the reassurance of having their project management platform backed up by GitHub. “There is some peace of mind in knowing that if a meteor hit whatever data center Zenhub’s data is in, it’s also backed up in GitHub.”
Final thoughts
Zenhub has proven to be an invaluable asset for Recidiviz, helping them stay nimble and focused on what truly matters—bringing about a smaller, more equitable justice system. By keeping project management simple and seamlessly connected to GitHub, Zenhub lets the team focus on their mission rather than wrestling with complicated tools. With Zenhub in their corner, Recidiviz can continue making a real impact, ensuring more people get the second chances they deserve.
As Joshua Essex puts it best, “As a startup that wants to move fast and a not-for-profit mindful of its budget, we have all the reasons in the world to avoid tool sprawl. Zenhub helps avoid this.”
If you’re curious about how Zenhub can help move your mission forward, book a demo today. And to learn more about the incredible work Recidiviz is doing, learn more here.
