Many agencies have taken valuable lessons away from the mass shift to telework during the pandemic. And for many, the biggest lessons have been about managing and protecting their workforces. “We are really going to leverage what we’ve learned over these last months, in remote work,” NASA Chief Human Capital Officer Jane Datta said at the IBM ThinkGov event last week. “Because the more you can have flexibility on geography, and people working from where they are, the greater access to talent we have … as well as plugging people we already have working for NASA into work, wherever that work might be.” Joe Warminsky has more.

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New York's new normal

The outbreak of COVID-19 in New York City split the duties of its information technology agency onto two tracks when the pandemic arrived in March, the city’s chief information officer said last week. Speaking during the IBM ThinkGov online conference, Jessica Tisch, the commissioner of the New York Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications, said her has divided the past three months into “two work streams”: The first was to enable the city's 325,000-person payroll to work remotely. “If that didn’t happen, nothing else could,” Tisch said. After that, DoITT was able to develop rapid applications to keep New Yorkers connected to vital services like meal delivery for needy families. Benjamin Freed has more.

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Help, wherever they can get it

The Federal Emergency Management Agency awards many types of grants, including emergency preparedness funds to state, local, tribal and territorial governments. In 2020, it has made more than in the previous 30 years combined, Chief Financial Officer Mary Comans said during the IBM Think Gov digital event. The agency wants some bots to step in and help with that process. “From a business and management stand point, automation would be a game-changer,” Comans said. Read more about their move to bots.

No code needed

The National Marine Fisheries Service adopted no-code systems after experiencing a lack of technical talent in the agency. No-code software lets users tailor an application without any programming knowledge, and the agency, better known as NOAA Fisheries, has recently embraced no- and low-code platforms for development projects. “We wanted to democratize project management, if I may use that term,” Roy Varghese, chief information officer of NOAA Fisheries, told Dave Nyczepir. “We wanted to make sure that project management … adhered to schedule, cost and risk but could be done with folks that are not classically trained project managers.” Read more here.

Job of the Day

Chief Information Security Officer | Federal Communications Commission

The Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) has responsibility for ensuring that all Commission programs and systems are protected by cyber and information security policies and procedures; and managing, designing, implementing and evaluating activities addressing: data security and information assurance; digital forensics; enterprise continuity; incident management; IT security training and awareness; IT systems security operations and maintenance; network security and telecommunications; personnel security; physical and environmental security; procurement; regulatory and standards compliance; risk management; strategic management; and system and application certification and accreditation. He/she supervises a permanent subordinate workforce of specialists and managers at grades GS-09 through GS-15 and a contractual workforce of IT specialists. Apply here.