The Next Focus for Technology Strategic Planning

Virtual First is a strategic, focused roadmap on not only what has been put into place during the pandemic, but a specific focus on how to deliver services in the long term, based on a dispersed workforce not operating out of traditional brick-and-mortar government facilities. To facilitate the “new next”, we must all adopt a virtual-first mindset – how can we deliver these services virtually, first? Virtual delivery can be anything from staff working from home, or staff flexing from socially distanced hoteling spaces.

To be clear, there are many services that local government performs that will never be virtual first, nor should they be. However, I believe that the pandemic has dramatically shifted the way in which government operations may work and as technology leaders, we must be prepared for that shift.

To be successful in developing a virtual-first strategy, technology leaders must plan to address several key issues. Those include at a minimum:

1) Workforce Technology – Has technology been deployed to employees to facilitate Virtual First? This includes not only the PCs or laptops that staff are provided, but larger or dual monitors, telephony solutions that allow communications to be seamless regardless of location, etc. This also includes identifying those employees who may not have sufficient internet access from a remote location and how to address, if possible, the connectivity capability for those employees.

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