Digital product management under extreme uncertainty: The Singapore TraceTogether story for COVID-19 contact tracing (A)

This case depicts Singapore’s TraceTogether (TT) story, beginning in early 2020 when COVID-19 was spreading globally with ravaging effects. TT was the world’s first national application of a digital contact-tracing tool. Remarkably, the initial version of TT was developed and launched in just eight...

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Main Authors: WONG, Yuet Nan, CHEAH, Sin Mei, MILLER, Steven M.
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Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
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Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cases_coll_all/408
https://smu.sharepoint.com/sites/admin/CMP/cases/SMU-21-BATCH%20%5BPDF-Pic%5D/SMU-21-0045%20%5BTraceTogether%5D/SMU-21-0045%20%5BTraceTogether%20A%5D.pdf?CT=1645455478702&OR=ItemsView
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spelling sg-smu-ink.cases_coll_all-14032023-07-17T05:29:22Z Digital product management under extreme uncertainty: The Singapore TraceTogether story for COVID-19 contact tracing (A) WONG, Yuet Nan CHEAH, Sin Mei MILLER, Steven M. This case depicts Singapore’s TraceTogether (TT) story, beginning in early 2020 when COVID-19 was spreading globally with ravaging effects. TT was the world’s first national application of a digital contact-tracing tool. Remarkably, the initial version of TT was developed and launched in just eight weeks. The increasing adoption of TT (both as a mobile app and as a hardware token) enabled the early identification and isolation of infected cases much faster than manual tracing. Part A of the case covers the related events and decision-making until the launch of the TT app on 20 March 2020. Part B covers the subsequent development efforts, version upgrades, follow-on releases and other issues until November 2021. The ability of the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) to respond quickly to this unforeseen crisis was germinated about 7 years prior. Chan Cheow Hoe, Deputy CEO led the transition to a bimodal IT organisation which was internally capable of exploratory and rapid software development, and recently Jason Bay, Senior Director, led the overall effort to create and launch the TT app. As Singapore’s COVID-19 situation was changing dynamically, so were the national response policies and the TT app. In August 2021, government officials announced that Singapore would begin the adjustment of living with COVID-19 as an endemic. Yet, as of November 2021, the situation was still highly volatile with the emergence of the Omicron variant. To this end, what would the future hold for TT? Should the health authority sunset TT to assuage concerns of national surveillance? Should they encourage the population to keep using TT as uncertainties remained due to the emergence of new COVID-19 variants? Could a subset of TT’s capabilities be repurposed for other national initiatives? What new types of foundational capabilities and supporting infrastructure should GovTech start putting in place now to prepare in advance for the next big unknown? Students should be able to utilise the concept of a bimodal organisation for building a Mode 2 organisation for exploratory software development, adopt the Digital Product Management framework for software development, and apply the transformational leadership style for leading organizations during uncertain times. This case is suitable for undergraduate, post-graduate and executive education courses on Information Technology management, digital product management and digital transformation. 2022-02-01T08:00:00Z text https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cases_coll_all/408 https://smu.sharepoint.com/sites/admin/CMP/cases/SMU-21-BATCH%20%5BPDF-Pic%5D/SMU-21-0045%20%5BTraceTogether%5D/SMU-21-0045%20%5BTraceTogether%20A%5D.pdf?CT=1645455478702&OR=ItemsView Case Collection eng Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University Product Management Agile project management Experimentation Digital Transformation Government Pandemic Asian Studies Databases and Information Systems Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods Public Health
institution Singapore Management University
building SMU Libraries
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider SMU Libraries
collection InK@SMU
language English
topic Product Management
Agile project management
Experimentation
Digital Transformation
Government
Pandemic
Asian Studies
Databases and Information Systems
Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods
Public Health
spellingShingle Product Management
Agile project management
Experimentation
Digital Transformation
Government
Pandemic
Asian Studies
Databases and Information Systems
Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods
Public Health
WONG, Yuet Nan
CHEAH, Sin Mei
MILLER, Steven M.
Digital product management under extreme uncertainty: The Singapore TraceTogether story for COVID-19 contact tracing (A)
description This case depicts Singapore’s TraceTogether (TT) story, beginning in early 2020 when COVID-19 was spreading globally with ravaging effects. TT was the world’s first national application of a digital contact-tracing tool. Remarkably, the initial version of TT was developed and launched in just eight weeks. The increasing adoption of TT (both as a mobile app and as a hardware token) enabled the early identification and isolation of infected cases much faster than manual tracing. Part A of the case covers the related events and decision-making until the launch of the TT app on 20 March 2020. Part B covers the subsequent development efforts, version upgrades, follow-on releases and other issues until November 2021. The ability of the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) to respond quickly to this unforeseen crisis was germinated about 7 years prior. Chan Cheow Hoe, Deputy CEO led the transition to a bimodal IT organisation which was internally capable of exploratory and rapid software development, and recently Jason Bay, Senior Director, led the overall effort to create and launch the TT app. As Singapore’s COVID-19 situation was changing dynamically, so were the national response policies and the TT app. In August 2021, government officials announced that Singapore would begin the adjustment of living with COVID-19 as an endemic. Yet, as of November 2021, the situation was still highly volatile with the emergence of the Omicron variant. To this end, what would the future hold for TT? Should the health authority sunset TT to assuage concerns of national surveillance? Should they encourage the population to keep using TT as uncertainties remained due to the emergence of new COVID-19 variants? Could a subset of TT’s capabilities be repurposed for other national initiatives? What new types of foundational capabilities and supporting infrastructure should GovTech start putting in place now to prepare in advance for the next big unknown? Students should be able to utilise the concept of a bimodal organisation for building a Mode 2 organisation for exploratory software development, adopt the Digital Product Management framework for software development, and apply the transformational leadership style for leading organizations during uncertain times. This case is suitable for undergraduate, post-graduate and executive education courses on Information Technology management, digital product management and digital transformation.
format text
author WONG, Yuet Nan
CHEAH, Sin Mei
MILLER, Steven M.
author_facet WONG, Yuet Nan
CHEAH, Sin Mei
MILLER, Steven M.
author_sort WONG, Yuet Nan
title Digital product management under extreme uncertainty: The Singapore TraceTogether story for COVID-19 contact tracing (A)
title_short Digital product management under extreme uncertainty: The Singapore TraceTogether story for COVID-19 contact tracing (A)
title_full Digital product management under extreme uncertainty: The Singapore TraceTogether story for COVID-19 contact tracing (A)
title_fullStr Digital product management under extreme uncertainty: The Singapore TraceTogether story for COVID-19 contact tracing (A)
title_full_unstemmed Digital product management under extreme uncertainty: The Singapore TraceTogether story for COVID-19 contact tracing (A)
title_sort digital product management under extreme uncertainty: the singapore tracetogether story for covid-19 contact tracing (a)
publisher Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
publishDate 2022
url https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cases_coll_all/408
https://smu.sharepoint.com/sites/admin/CMP/cases/SMU-21-BATCH%20%5BPDF-Pic%5D/SMU-21-0045%20%5BTraceTogether%5D/SMU-21-0045%20%5BTraceTogether%20A%5D.pdf?CT=1645455478702&OR=ItemsView
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