Oakland’s Information Technology Department (ITD) offers advice and support to all city departments so they can better serve residents. FUSE executive fellow Jana Good developed a strategic technology plan for ITD that advances the priorities of the city, while leveraging common technology platforms to ensure holistic, integrated, and extensible solutions. She also supported the city’s COVID-19 efforts, developing and implementing strategic communications for staff to support remote working and continued operations.

To create the strategic technology plan, Jana initially conducted meetings with more than 100 employees from all city departments, including council members and the mayor. Through that process, she identified the city’s most pressing technology needs, prioritizing them in the plan. She also identified several opportunities to begin implementation, including the update and automation of datasets to the city’s Open Data Portal and the creation of a Constituent Management App that enables council member staff to more easily manage resident comments and questions. To help educate departments, she created a monthly newsletter that provides technology updates and tips. Her work helped prioritize, illuminate, and capacitate key technology initiatives for Oakland.