Arthur Riel, Denisa Popescu and Luisita Guanlao
While the case study has been relatively efficient, it is not a pure centralized model. The IT heads of the various ministries do not formally report to the government CIO, but there is strong support from the Prime Minister’ s office to encourage their collaboration. As such the program has been successful, but is not without complications due to various IT heads not participating or collaborating optimally. With nearly four years left in the project there is considerable study to be conducted on how closely this case study will mirror the theoretical benefits, but the initial results are very promising.
The Austrian government has a similar variant to this model where overall strategy, coordination and crosscutting projects are centralized under a single CIO in the State Secretary in the Federal Chancellery. Ministry specific and local projects are not actively managed by the CIO, but handled within the local IT organization(‘ Austria eGovernment strategy’, 2013). Switzerland is another example that closely follows the Austrian model(‘ Framework Agreement on eGovernment Cooperation in Switzerland’, 2013).
The United Kingdom attempts to support a centralized management model but opts for a CIO council made up of the six CIOs representing the largest government departments as ranked by IT delivery. While there is a government CIO to chair the council, the individual CIOs are responsible for ICT delivery within their respective areas(‘ UK Government ICT Strategy’, 2013).
Empirical literature on IT arrangements for e‐government in US state governments also supports our findings. The quasi‐centralized models seems to be prevalent where a formal authority as the government Chief Information Officer( CIO) position supported by IT governing bodies and IT governance processes( e. g. enterprise architecture, portfolio management, technology standards) exert tighter central control over shared projects and services and looser central control via standards and guidelines over local IT activities( Markus et al, 2012). Tolbert, Mossberger and McNeal( 2008) also found that states with higher levels of e‐government implementation have such IT management structures that span departmental boundaries( chief information officer, technology boards, shared services).
3. Decentralized management / decentralized funding
The most common model of e‐Government program management is a decentralized management and funding model in which each ministry has its own IT management, team, technology stack, and data model. Unlike the private sector, where centralization is the norm, government management structures tend to be problematic. Where centralizing the management structure is not feasible there are two main methods for injecting order into the silo‐based nature of the typical government structure: virtual central control and a“ coalition of the willing”.
Governments in which all or most of the ministries recognize the inefficiencies / pain points of a heterogeneous environment tend to benefit from the creation of a virtualized central control. This normally sees one of the more powerful ministries( or a prime minister’ s or president’ s office) taking the lead to coordinate e‐ Government program efforts. Each ministry assigns staff to the common goal of architecting gold data models, technology standards and an e‐Government services program. In addition, each ministry pools a percentage of its budget for this effort. Under leadership of the guiding ministry or other government body, the virtual team and its budget create the e‐Government strategy and then executes on it. The prerequisite of success for this strategy lies in having a government in which most or all ministries are motivated to create a homogeneous IT environment from their disparate architectures.
Many governments do not have the luxury of Ministers that share a common vision for technology or an e‐ Government strategy. An attempt to create a virtually centralized management structure is met with cynicism and finding a lead Ministry that can develop a consensus among the other branches of government becomes very difficult. In these cases, which are the most common scenarios found when developing e‐Government strategies; the creation of a“ coalition of the willing” becomes the best chance of moving the country’ s e‐ Government agenda forward.
The goal of a willing coalition strategy is to find several ministries where the lack of homogeneity and / or an e‐ Government strategy is especially problematic. To find critical mass, one or more powerful ministries need to be aligned. The Finance, Communications, Interior, Trade and Justice Ministries are often the best choices for such a coalition. The representative ministries are then joined by smaller, weaker ministries that hope to
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