Summary
COVID-19 arrived slowly and then quickly for governments across the world. By the end of March 2020, lockdowns and states of emergencies had been declared. Join Gordon Ross as he reflects on his time spent with the British Columbia (BC) Government DDN (digital delivery network), working on the COVID-19 response over the first 12 months of the pandemic. Learn how the government mobilized talent, how decision-making and situational awareness was achieved, and whether the innovations prompted by COVID-19 led to lasting change or costly chaos.
Key Insights
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Inter-ministry coordination under crisis required rapid, remote workflow mapping using digital tools like Miro to solve complex logistics.
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Quarantining temporary foreign agricultural workers on arrival in hotels prevented COVID outbreaks on BC farms, unlike other provinces.
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The Digital Response Unit (DRU), a fluid network inspired by a team-of-teams model, enabled situational awareness and cross-government collaboration.
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The DRU evolved into the Digital Delivery Network (DDN), a 755-person network representing 1% of BC government staff, balancing flexibility, scalability, and survivability.
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Existing digital incubators like the Exchange Lab and the government digital experience team provided the talent and trust to accelerate COVID responses.
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The pandemic accelerated government innovation at a pace equivalent to years of change in just weeks, termed the COVID dividend by Martin Stewart Weeks.
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Sustaining senior leader engagement post-emergency is difficult because crises sharpen focus and allow weeks of intense collaboration unsustainable in normal times.
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A simple, open format with no wrong answers fostered trust, transparency, and fast problem-solving in the DRU/DDN meetings.
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Some rapid COVID-era digital solutions were 'quick and dirty,' leading to legacy challenges for ongoing maintainability and integration.
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Government organizational silos were bridged by creating intentional networks to improve resilience and readiness for future wicked problems.
Notable Quotes
"My phone buzzed again. I have a job this weekend for you and your team to help on the COVID response if you’re available."
"The arrival of workers during COVID lockdown meant coordinating across government ministries, airport authority, federal border services and public health – this was a design problem."
"Having workers leave the airport and travel to the farm to self-isolate was simply not feasible – the province would have to be responsible for quarantine."
"By July 2020, more than 4,000 workers had arrived, 35 tested positive during quarantine but there were zero cases on BC farms employing temporary foreign workers."
"The Digital Response Unit was a source of situational awareness and air traffic control within the flurry of daily COVID case counts and policy decisions."
"Flexibility is the network’s ability to reconfigure itself, scalability is ability to expand or shrink, survivability is withstand attacks because codes exist across nodes."
"We made changes in the last three weeks that would normally have taken three years. Could we expect a COVID dividend?"
"The DDN shortened the network distance between any two government staff who found themselves thrown into COVID response work, making coordination faster."
"How are you managing connections across and between projects and communities inside your government during non-emergency times?"
"There were quick and dirty solutions whose legacy remains a risk for ongoing COVID work, not all a good news story as we pivot out of COVID."
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