Tool Finder

Opportunity

Government workers often know what they need to do - track attendance, monitor submissions, send follow-ups - but struggle to figure out which existing tools can actually help, and how to use them together efficiently. Even when suitable tools already exist, officers spend time scanning repositories, interpreting technical descriptions, or defaulting to manual workarounds like Excel.

Today, officers typically spend 30–90 minutes searching across repositories, documentation pages, or asking colleagues just to decide whether a tool might fit their use case. When answers remain unclear, many default to manual workarounds (such as Excel or email chains) or proceed to build new solutions from scratch, even when suitable tools already exist.

This is not just inconvenient, it is costly.

What happens when officers can’t find the right tools

When discovery fails or takes too long:

• Manual processes persist, increasing error rates and follow-up work

• Teams duplicate effort, rebuilding systems that already exist elsewhere in government

• Adoption of central tools slows, reducing the return on public investment

• Delivery timelines stretch, affecting downstream services and programmes

In effect, time that could be spent delivering outcomes is absorbed by avoidable decision friction.

The Goal

We want to eliminate the friction between government workers identifying a problem and discovering the right digital tools to solve it. Our focus is on creating a simple discovery system that works the way public servants naturally think about their problems.

Research & Approach

We surveyed 33 officers across 13 agencies, from administrators to policy maker to understand the current pain points users face when it comes to discovering tools:

Key Findings

• 57% of survey respondents don't know what tools exist when they need them

  • One noted: "there's a first hurdle in getting to know it exists"

• Discovery relies on informal networks, not searchable/official channels

  • 70% discover tools through colleagues/word-of-mouth

• Finding the right tool for specific needs causes confusion

  • "There are too many similar options, how do I know which one fits my purpose best without needing to trial and error?"

This creates knowledge bottlenecks where useful tools remain underused simply because the right people haven't heard about them. Meanwhile, officers continue time-consuming manual processes in Excel that existing government tools could easily automate.

Velocity

Over the past month, we built and tested Tool Finder - a working system that helps officers translate work problems into specific tool suggestions with setup help from 57 government tools (includes both OGP and GovTech tools).

What officers can do today:

✅ Describe work problems in plain language and get matched to relevant tools

✅ Understand why each tool fits and how tools work together

✅ Access step-by-step setup guidance through Slack (OGP staff) or web interface

✅ Move from problem to working solution without technical expertise

Rather than presenting a catalogue of products, Tool Finder connects problems → tools → workflows in a way that aligns with how officers think.

Webapp

Slackbot

Traction

We tested with officers from 6 agencies including CPF, CSC, MDDI and MOE using real-life scenarios like:

“I want to collect data easily, view live updates in a dashboard, and send automated follow-up emails.”

Feedback

Some of the feedback we received include:

What we found:

Tool discovery works and validates our problem

80% of users received accurate tool recommendations on their first attempt, with feedback like "This is so much easier than reading all product docs and asking around," directly validating that officers struggle with tool discovery and our solution addresses this pain point.

First response accuracy drives user trust

Users judge the entire system based on the initial answer - wrong tools or broken links immediately reduce confidence and discourage further use, making accuracy more important than comprehensiveness.

Technical execution gaps limit adoption

While users valued the core recommendations, all 5 encountered UI problems (broken links, unclear instructions, interface mismatches) that prevented task completion and dropped confidence ratings to 3/5.

Meet The Team