8CIOReview | | NOVEMBER 2022IN MY OPINIONTed Ross is CIO for the City of Los Angeles and General Manager of the Information Technology Agency (ITA). His department of 455 employees delivers enterprise IT services to 48,000 employees across 45 City departments and digital services to over 4 million residents. Appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2015, Ted has over 23 years of private and public sector technology experience, earning various awards along the way, including #1 Digital City, Top 25 Doer & Dreamer, and CIO of the Year according to LA Business Journal. Ted has been featured in Fortune Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist, as well as, a presenter at many global technology conferences. BUILDING A "NEW BETTER" - NOT A "NEW NORMAL" - WITH GOVERNMENT DIGITAL SERVICESThe COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our world. From Zoom work meetings to virtual family gatherings, we have changed almost every facet of our daily lives to stop the spread. During this challenging time, governments have either dramatically redesigned their government services or shut them down to the detriment of their constituents. The City of Los Angeles has faced the very same challenges. Early in the pandemic, many facilities and public counters had to close. Over 18,000 City staff, not familiar with working from home, were quickly migrated to telework. City Council meetings were moved to virtual meetings and many business processes had to be changed so that basic government functions could operate. And while this virus has had many terrible consequences for governments and their constituencies, the pandemic has also been a catalyst for improving the quality and availability of digital government services. A catalyst that we need to nurture and grow.COVID-19 Pandemic as a Catalyst for Better Government ServicesIf we take advantage of what we have learned through the pandemic, if we implement across our governments what was successful in a handful of departments, and if we enact good digital strategy... we will improve government services for decades to come. As described by famed UCLA professor, Richard Rumelt, "Good strategy works by focusing energy and resources on one, or a very few, pivotal objectives whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favorable outcomes." At the heart of good digital strategy is identifying the few pivotal objectives that, if achieved, would be game changing for your government or business. The City of Los Angeles believes we have found these and published them in our City of Los Angeles Digital Strategy: COVID-19 Pandemic & Beyond.The challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic grant us an unprecedented opportunity to By Ted Ross, CIO, General Manager, City of Los Angelescreate a "new better", not just a "new normal" for online services for the public. In 2020, the Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti formalized this concept under Executive Directive #29 (Contactless & People Centered City Initiative), under which City of Los Angeles departments must " facilitate remote, digital interactions during and after the pandemic -- saving people time, money, and frustration, while improving public health, accessibility, and convenience." The City's Information Technology Agency (ITA) facilitated a comprehensive exercise for all City of Los Angeles departments. The challenge was simple: review all department services that were paused or reduced by COVID-19 and identify methods to digitize and restore them. After two months of reviewing 97 different City of Los Angeles services impacted by COVID-19, the citywide team identified 13 key technologies that, if implemented, would dramatically improve how residents and businesses digitally engage L.A. City government. Those 13 technologies were adopted as a digital playbook and incorporated into a new digital strategy.Establishing a Digital, Contactless Government of the FutureIn our experience, building a digital government requires focus on two key goals:1. Digitizing Our Government Workforce2. Digitizing City Department Services for AngelenosFirst, the digital IQ of our government workforce (employees and elected officials) has a direct impact on the quality and innovation of services delivered to the public. Elected offices and City of L.A. employees are charged with planning, implementing, and improving the services Ted Ross
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