Traditional business continuity and disaster recovery playbooks are no longer sufficient. Governments, therefore, need to not only transform their business models, processes, and services, but create an adaptive government, like an adaptive enterprise, at their core, so support for change and intrinsic agility is engineered into current and future operations.
The theory is straight-forward. Rather than being on the digital transformation treadmill and always transforming and reacting to change after the fact, let’s build more adaptability into how government agencies operate today so we can innovate preemptively. Much like the US military’s defense readiness condition (DEFCON) system — which prescribes five levels of readiness in terms of states of alert — this intrinsic ability to change makes it far easier and faster to react to dynamically changing and unpredictable conditions.
The tools to implement this change are here today. They consist of both physical and digital enablers of adaptability, and include items such as modular design and construction, intelligent sensors, robotics and drones, AI/ML, blockchain and smart contracts, intelligent automation and RPA, digital twins, and much more.
