Add a chapter on distributed government

[lukefretwell]

For your consideration, here's my submission to this amazing publication.

# Distributed government is the path to a truly open, empathetic, inclusive civil society

Society has reached a point in the organizational and civic evolutionary cycle where [distributed government teams](https://distributedgov.com/) will play an undeniable and critical role in the future of highly effective, empathetic and inclusive public services.

As civic leaders wrestle with and seriously address the issues of our times — disasters, pandemics, climate change, health and wellness, economic empowerment — distributed teams is the obvious solution for delivering responsive and resilient government services.

## Defining distributed

John O’Duinn, author of[ Distributed Teams: The Art and Practice of Working Together While Physically Apart](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732254907/ref=cm_sw_su_dp), has written the definitive book on why distributed teams are important, and how they can be even more effective than their physically collocated counterparts.

While antiquated terms like ‘telework’ and ‘remote’ continue to be flippantly used, O’Duinn makes clear [distinctions](https://oduinn.com/2020/02/25/distributed-team-vs-remote-work-and-work-from-home/) between key terms, such as ‘distributed teams,’ ‘virtual teams,’ ‘virtual employee,’ ‘remote work,’ ‘remote employee,’ ‘work from home,’ ‘work from anywhere’ and ‘telework’.

And the subtle differences in each drastically impact our perceptions and assumptions around distributed teams.

How O’Duinn describes ‘distributed’:

All humans on the team work together, even though they are physically apart from each other. This is not a collection of individuals who each do solo heads-down work from different locations. Instead, this is a group of humans who coordinate their work with others on their physically distributed team. Because everyone on the physically distributed team is "remote" from someone, it is clear that everyone on the team has equal responsibility to communicate and coordinate their work with coworkers – regardless of whether any individual human is working from a building with the company logo on the door, from home, from a coworking space, a hotel or a parked car! Example usage: “I work on a distributed team”, “my team is distributed”.

## Why distributed is important

Distributed takes a holistic approach to work and what society values, and areas civic institutions must address if they are to stay relevant.

Here are key reasons why distributed teams are critical, especially for government:

* Representation: Geographically distributed government workforce more closely matches the needs and concerns of the wider population.

* Resiliency: Ability to maintain operations regardless of whereabouts, especially if physical locations or regions have been compromised for a prolonged period of time.

* Recruiting: Talent pool is expanded to include people of diverse backgrounds, ages, abilities and experience.

* Cost savings: Leasing and maintenance of physical buildings become flexible expenses as agencies shift to partly or fully distributed.

* Sustainability: Decreased carbon footprint as fewer people are commuting.

* Work/life balance: Government employees spend less time commuting and invest more energy into their families and communities.

* Economic empowerment: Financial employment benefits are distributed across multiple local communities rather than centralizing to one.

## Increased empathy

In addition to the above reasons, distributed government teams can tap into a stronger sense of empathy — a value inherent in the role of authentic public service.

Once you truly experience distributed culture, you have a stronger understanding of what digital services really mean and how they can make or break the end user experience. If public servants don’t place themselves in digital environments of their own, their ability to have complete empathy for those they serve is lessened.

Distributed digital government service teams have more potential to have empathy for their end users. Immersing yourself into a distributed team is the ultimate digital service user research experience.

## We have the means

We now have low-cost, high-reliability tools — G Suite, Slack, Trello, GitHub and Zoom to name just a few — that fully empower asynchronous, instant collaboration. Training on the tools is of course important. Just as important is the training on how to work in and lead distributed teams, fostering a culture of distributed work, and implementing policies to support highly effective distributed teams.

## Government is doing this

[18F](https://18f.gsa.gov/) has actively socialized the benefits of distributed teams and how this model has made its teams more effective. Some documentation on their recommended best practices:

* [18F’s best practices for making distributed teams work](https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/10/15/best-practices-for-distributed-teams/)

* [Leading dynamic and distributed teams](https://product-guide.18f.gov/we-do-product-well/leading-dynamic-and-distributed-teams/)

* [Making a distributed design team work](https://18f.gsa.gov/2016/04/27/making-a-distributed-design-team-work/)

* [3 ways to manage research projects remotely](https://18f.gsa.gov/2017/09/27/three-ways-to-manage-research-projects/)

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced government at all levels to fast-track distributed work, and many are planning for its indefinite use.

The U.S. Defense Department has [said](https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2284622/work-effectiveness-is-a-product-not-a-location-dod-official-says/), "a big DOD success story during the pandemic has been that employees who are teleworking have increased  their productivity over what it was when they were required to go to an office. The department is looking to preserve that productivity and resilience after the pandemic is passed, and part of that challenge will be to embrace this new normal and have a cultural shift in thinking and attitudes across the force."

## Vendors are doing this

Many government contractors and vendors are fully distributed. [CivicActions](https://civicactions.com) is a 90-person government digital services firm serving federal, state and local governments throughout the United States. There are many others — particularly[ newer, more innovative government and civic technology vendors](https://digitalservicescoalition.org) — operating in the same way. Being able to work in physically distributed teams allows government agencies to work with the best vendor for that project, not just the best nearby vendor.

## Survey says

A 2019[ Owl Labs survey](https://www.owllabs.com/blog/remote-work-statistics) highlights the varying benefits of the distributed model.

Here are just a few:

* Remote workers earn salaries higher than $100,000/year, 2.2x more frequently than on-site workers.

* Remote workers say they’re happy in their jobs 29% more than on-site workers — 71% of remote workers say they’re happy in their job, and only 55% of on-site workers say they’re happy in their job.

* 34% of U.S. workers would take a pay cut of up to 5% in order to work remotely.

* 42% of remote workers plan to work remotely more frequently than they currently do in the next 5 years, and that more than half of on-site workers want to start working remotely.

* 55% of remote workers would be likely to look for another job if they were no longer allowed to work remotely. And 61% of remote workers would expect a pay increase if they were no longer allowed to work remotely.

* 68% of remote workers say they are not concerned working remotely will impact their career progression, while 23% say they fear it would.

* The top reasons remote workers choose to work remotely include: better work-life balance (91%), increased productivity/better focus (79%), less stress (78%) and avoiding a commute (78%).

* Remote workers say they work more than 40 hours per week 43% more than on-site workers do. However, on-site workers are also working longer weeks because it’s required of them, while more remote workers are doing so because they enjoy what they do.

## Distributed government

For government to authentically deliver meaningful public services of the future, it will need to embrace the inevitable relevance and importance of distributed teams.

If government leaders truly value representation, resiliency, sustainability, work/life balance, hiring the best and brightest, economic empowerment, instilling exponential passion for mission-driven work and the many other possibilities for civic innovation, embracing the distributed mindset is the new requisite of how we will define the next phase of public service.

[semioticrobotic]

This is awesome, @lukefretwell. Thanks so much for pitching it. I'd love to include it in this volume and want to get right to work on some collaborative editing with you.

To that end, I'll open a pull request to include this chapter in the book's "codebase," and work with you on it there. I've invited you to join the project, so watch your inbox for that notice.

[semioticrobotic]

Okay! I've started hacking on this in #34, @lukefretwell. Please feel free to join me there. And again: Thank you!

[semioticrobotic]

Any idea when you might be able to address these edits, @lukefretwell? Asking because I'd still very much love for this chapter to be part of the book when it launches before the end of the calendar year. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

[lukefretwell]

@semioticrobotic sorry about this. I'll review and get back to you by end of next week.

[semioticrobotic]

Sounds great, @lukefretwell. Thanks so much.

[semioticrobotic]

Let's plan on slating this for the first update to the book (v1.1) in the new year, rather than the imminent initial release. This way, @lukefretwell has plenty of time to revise and we have some great material already in the works for our first major update.

[lukefretwell]

@semioticrobotic apologies for the delay on this. I'm going to sync with @joduinn to co-author and help get it across the finish line.

[semioticrobotic]

No problem at all, @lukefretwell. And welcome, @joduinn—the more, the merrier. I look forward to working with you both.

[joduinn]

Hello @semioticrobotic

Nice to e-meet you! Just met with @lukefretwell and we've now set up some coworking times for next week. This looks exciting, so I'm happy to help here. More next week after we start working on the text and going through the various comments already here.

Meanwhile, as part of my getting up to speed here, I'd like to sanity check dates. I see mention of this as no-longer-included-in-v1.0 (which seems to be 15dec?), and instead to be include-in-v1.1 "in the new year"? Is that quick scan accurate? If so, do you have any approx date for the v1.1? (January? Q2? before 31dec2021? :-) )

Also, as I start learning my way around this, is there's anything else I should know?

John.

[semioticrobotic]

Thanks, @joduinn, for the introduction and for pitching in. Great to have you!

Your deadline scan furnished accurate data. 😄 We won't rush this in order to get it finished by December 15, but we'll make it a top priority for the next version of the book, coming in 2021. We don't have a specific date for that release right now (we'll set the roadmap and milestones after we ship v1.0), but I know my personal goal is to ship it in Q1 of 2021—so, before April.

Naturally, I'm happy to work on the writing with you and @lukefretwell at any time, as your schedule permits. I will be taking a break for the holidays and will be checking messages only intermittently between December 21 and January 04.

Apart from that, I think you're good to go! Happy to answer questions as they arise. Thanks, @joduinn, for your energy and effort on this project.

[joduinn]

hi @semioticrobotic - thanks for confirming the quick scan results(!) Aiming for Q1 of 2021 is helpful and plenty good enough accuracy for now, thanks.

(More after @lukefretwell and I get focused time on the text next week.)

[semioticrobotic]

Great! Thanks, @joduinn and @lukefretwell. Will be great to have a blockbuster chapter like this one to draw attention to v1.1 next year.

[joduinn]

@lukefretwell as part of our coworking later today, we should look at merging this and #34 issues... there's good stuff in both...

[joduinn]

@semioticrobotic :

I've just finished reviewing all comments in #33 and #34. All are merged into an offline doc that I am working on with @lukefretwell . As best as I can tell, #34 is now obsolete and can be ignored. If there are further comments, lets track them in #33.

(I note I saw a change to contents.md that I am happy to ignore for now - we will need something in contents.md later, once we have the chapter written and updated title ready).

[semioticrobotic]

Roger that, @joduinn. I will close #34 with this note. Thanks!