critical appraisal on project management approaches in e-government

8/12/2019 Critical Appraisal on Project Management Approaches in E-Government

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Critical Appraisal on Project ManagementApproaches in e-GovemmentDemetrios Sarantis, Dimitris Askounis

School of Electrical and Computer EngineeringNational Technical University ofAthensAthens, [email protected] bstract This contribution provides a critical appraisal ofthree of the contemporary project management approachesagainst e-Government challenges. Most of the projectmanagement approaches, put forward during e-Governmentprojects implementation, are more suitable for the managementof the overall development of information systems, rather thanbeing directly targeted on the specific e-Government needs. Theincorporation of information technologies in the publicmanagement raises different challenges compared to ones

encountered in the private sector. This paper identifies the majorchallenges that characterize the management of e-Governmentinitiatives. This paper recognizes the weaknesses of thecontemporary project management approaches against theidentified e-Government challenges to make the appraisal moresystematic and more suitable for the successful management of eGovernment projects. Future analysis of the results will guide theidentification of project management gaps, contributing to thebetter understanding of the factors that lead to governmental ITprojects success or failure.Keywords IT Project Management, Public Sector, eGovernment Information Systems

I. INTRODUCTIONThe inability of governmental organizations to successfullycomplete public information technology projects threatens toundermine efforts to implement e-Government. Additionally,an increasing number of countries formulate ambitious actionplans for implementing e-Government. As OECD [1] statesUnless governments learn to manage the risks connected withlarge public IT projects, these e-dreams will tum into globalnightmares. Governments must get the fundamentals of IT right

if they want to harvest the huge potential of going online .e-Government project failures are all too common - somemake the headlines, but most of them are quickly forgotten. Asurvey of e-Government projects in developing and transitioneconomies revealed that as many as 85 percent are a partial

(unattained goals) or total (abandoned implementation) failure[2]. Though the exact numbers are uncertain and depend tosome extent on how success is measured, the minority ofgovernment transformation projects are those countered assuccesses [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8].The reasons for failure are many and varied. Commonreasons include: lack of internal ownership, absence of visionor strategy, poor project management, inadequate technologicalinfrastructure and obstacles to data interchange [9]. Lack of abusiness case for the project, overreliance on technology as the

Steve SmithsonInformation Systems and Innovation GroupLondon School ofEconomics and Political ScienceLondon, UK

main driver for e-Government and the lack of sufficientadministrative reform to accompany e-Government are alsocited [10].As implementation projects for transforming governmentmature and tend to become closely interrelated, the need forsuccessfully tackling project management emerges: without aproject management method, those who commission an eGovernment project, those who manage it and those who work

on it will not have the necessary tools to plan, organize,monitor and re-schedule tasks, responsibilities and milestones.The analysis performed has been based on a solidmethodological framework for screening existingmethodologies, identifying core issues and formulating pointsfor embellishment.This article is organized in five sections. The second sectionintroduces the research methodology that has been applied inthe research. Section three highlights the specific challengesencountered during implementation of e-Government projects.Next, section four, examines the weak points of theconventional project management, focusing on the satisfaction

of the specific challenges identified in the previous section.Finally, section five presents conclusions and futureperspectives of this work regarding new approaches that couldbe used to improve the rigor and relevance of e-Governmenttransformation projects management research. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The methodology used for analyzing project managementmethodologies is based on gradually structuring literaturefmdings and comparing their characteristics with some widelyused project management methodologies, in order to researchthe extent of coverage of each project management approachagainst the identified e-Government challenges. As shown inFigure 1, this process consists of the following phases andsteps:Phase 1 - Literature review: A review of current literature ine-Government area is used to identify factors found toinfluence the success of e-Government initiatives. This reviewincludes the scanning of top journals, book chapters and casestudies in information systems and public administration with afocus on e-Government initiatives. The analysis in this step isfocalized to derive the specific management andimplementation challenges that are been confronted in projects

of e-Government domain.


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Phase 2 - Exploratory Research: The analysis in this stepexamines some of the most popular project managementapproaches selected based on their visibility and central role ine-Government systems project implementation. The study hasbeen utilized a methodology that is based on exploratoryresearch. Available literature and case studies have beenreviewed and authors personal experience in e-Governmentprojects implementation has been exploited. The type ofexploratory research was chosen because it can providesignificant insight into a given situation, facilitating thestructure and identification ofnew problems.This phase consists of the following three steps:

A Project Management Development ApproachesScreeningThe different project management strands and approacheshave been analyzed based on the following sources: Extensive research in bibliographic databasesregarding scientific literature in project management Project management approaches documentation Professionals and practitioners project managementcase studies Web search facilities and articles concerning features

of contemporary project management approachesB WeaknessesIdentificationIn this step the research identifies the core weaknesses ofproject management approaches.

C. Weaknesses OrganisationThe identified weaknesses have been mapped to the relatede-Government project challenges identified in phase 1.I Phase1: LiteratureReview iI fI Fonnulabon of Factors II eGovemmentProjeetsand af'e.ct:ing the succe.ss fa:ilure f fl perience Paper;Analysis eGovemrnentprojec ts I

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ .I I, Ph.arc 2: Eq.loratory Il.cscll Ch t f: ProjectMlIILIIem.erd WeakPoiDt, WeakPoim.tl II Approaches Screening Identification Organ.isation I

Figure 1. Research MethodologyIII. EGOVERNMENTPROJECT MANAGEMENT CHALLENGESThe selection of the appropriate project managementmethodology is significant to the healthy development of eGovernment projects. However, up until now, the projectmanagement framework of e-Government has not beenthoroughly developed, as most of the project managementmodels put forward by authoritative organizations are generic,some of them have been applied in plain IT implementationprojects, and they are not directly targeting the specificities ofe-Government transformation.

The models and methods applied in private sectorinformation technology projects have been viewed with muchskepticism in the literature on public administration and publicmanagement [11], [12]. The main dissidence summarized inSayre s [13] standpoint that public and private organizationsare fundamentally alike in all unimportant respects . Allisonproceeds furthermore to argue that the notion that there is anysignificant body of private management practices and skills thatcan be transferred directly to public management tasks in a waythat produces significant improvements is wrong [14]. Thisfact is often not alluded to by those supporting greaterintroduction of private sector management practice intogovernment transformation projects.There is no agreement on which project managementmethodology is effective and efficient concerningimplementation of e-Government projects. None has beenparticularly successful so far. A number of critics note thatmanagement is characterized by the adoption of fads whosepopularity has little to do with actual evidence of effectiveness[15]. These fads are usually abandoned after a few years in theface of less than impressive results before a new fad isembraced equally as enthusiastically [16].If public and private information systems projects arefundamentally different, there is little point in seeking to applythe existing project management methodologies from theprivate sector without considering these differences andadapting properly the existing methodologies.Government projects demand for flexibility and the abilityto address change. Following this path, the identif ied gaps inthe traditional project management methodologies are usuallycemented with more measurement, more control and morerules [17]; hence the calls in governments of developedcountries for use in e-Government projects of more planning,more measurement, and more strict methodologies [18].The list of e-Government challenges that are identified isenumerated in the following list and the literature citations areprovided. First the challenge is presented, then thedifferentiation is illustrated in italics and the relative literaturesource citations follow.

1 Human resources Skills inadequacies in knowledgeablepersonnel Bacon 1991 [19]; Perry and Porter 1982 [20];Willcocks 1994 [21]; Caffrey 1998 [22]; Brown 2001 [23];Dawes and Pardo 2002 [24]; Ho 2002 [25]; Moon 2002;Holden et al2003 [26].2 Work milieu More bureaucratic McCurdy 1978 [27[;Rainey 1983 [28]; Boyne 2002 [29]; Bozeman and Kingsley1998 [30]; Farnham and Horton 1996 [31]; Bozeman and Scott1996 [32]; Bozeman et al1992 [33]; Bretschneider 1990 [34].3 Relation within and across organizational boundariesGreater interdependence increased external review andcontrol large number stakeholders with conflict interestsBretschneider 1990 [34]; Bellamy 2000 [35]; Harris 2000 [36];Landsbergen and Wolken 2001 [37]; Burbridge 2002 [38];Dawes and Pardo 2002 [24]; Rocheleau 2003 [39]; Willcocks1994 [21]; Brown 2003 [40].


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TABLE I. PROJECT MANAGEMENTAPPROACHES WEAK POINTSRelation with Title Description PRINCE 2 PMI GDPMe-GovernmentChallenge

5 Definition of the project plan at Unnecessary time is spent managing and documenting applied appliedinitial stage. Complicated the project causing significant d elayactivity diagram6 Inadequate management of Public administrat ion essential organisationalchanges applied appliedorganizational change during the project implementation are not addressedefficiently

6 8 Generic - must be tailored to is method and not a cure. People who use it s hould applied applied appliedsuit the occasion tailor it efficiently to the project in hand3 Responsibilities transfer risk Because of the various roles and responsibilities appliedinvolved, participants in the project can easily blameeach other when something goes wrong

6 8 Splitting up a project often Splitting up a project often results in a lack of appliedresults ina lack of knowledge knowledge of the project by responsible persons.3 Dearth of specific project roles Human factors are not within the scope of the applied appliedmethodology8 Not systematic knowledge Lessons learned are recorded but they are not exploited applied applied appliedreuse in future projects in a systematic manner

5 1 Bottom-up structure The project is structured in a bottom-up manner, not in applied applieda top-down one10 Not covering the original need, takes the view that the go ahead has been agreed and applied applied appliedsolution generatingand that the project now needs organis ingand control lingfeasibility studies

5 1 Planning is an ongoing effort does not cover the necessity of continuous project applied appliedthroughout the project planning update7 Not a full project management does not cover the full project management spectrum, appliedmethodology it is used to increase the project managementeffectiveness of other models or methodologies

5 1 Schedule focused Too much time could be spend on project design and applied applied appliedget caught up in designing it rather than the actualimplementation

This is a modem view with a focus on public services;however the traditional project management methodologiestend to be activity centric to deliver cost savings andproductivity improvements quickly.Although this type of project management approach is agood start, and is easily cost justified, its emphasis on the ITenablement of individual processes through the developmentand deployment of specific applications has a number of majorissues. Project management of e-Government projects does nothave to mean the rigid application of a complex methodology:the best results will come from an intelligent application ofprinciples of the existing methodologies to suit the nature andscale of the task at hand.The absolute value of the conventional project managementtechniques of the previous section, together with theirconvergence in common topics, certainly indicate that there is asolid ground for e-Government projects; yet from the specificnature of e-Government transformation projects, analyzed in

previous section, and the extent of coverage of the eGovernment challenges from the contemporary projectmanagement methodologies and techniques show that there arelimitations and gaps that should be identified and coveredrespectively. The identification of such gaps is meant to be away to inform e-Government practitioners and researchersinterested in developing new research in e-Government projectmanagement, and as an input to this forthcoming researchagenda.

The main argument of the paper is not that the extantproject management body of thought with its concepts,methodologies and tools is worthless and should be abandoned,but rather that a new approach is needed, in order to enrich andextend the field beyond its current intellectual foundations,filling the identified gaps and connecting it more closely to thespecific challenges of electronic and transformationalgovernment projects.

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critical appraisal on project management approaches in e-government

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