Urban Intelligence's Director for Strategy and Analytics lead a small team to design and develop a Health Department data and analytics strategy, The strategy project engaged widely within the Department to establish baseline conditions for a strategy, mapped existing systems and processes (Departmental, APS and industry), and designed a strategy framework for the consideration of the Senior Executive Board. The strategy project was deferred in March 2020 to prioritise the COVID-19 response.This pivot changed the team’s role to generate material to support evidence based post-crisis decision making. This involved designing and developing a real time case study of data use during the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic from which observations from organizational behaviors, and lessons and recommendations were derived for SES review.