Jeroen Meij and Jeroen Pastoor
Among services for citizens we find Web accessibility guidelines, Digital ID and a Civil Service number. For businesses a digital ID and an information service is planned. The National registrations consist of common registers of Addresses and buildings, Persons, Topography, Real estate, Work and income, Vehicles, etc.
These facilities together form the basic infrastructure for the realisation of eGovernment. The i‐NUP not only wishes to give priority to these facilities, but also aims to enhance the control over the realisation process.
Various levels of government have collectively agreed to implement this basic infrastructure( and to start using it). Therefore the government started a wide range of projects for the development, implementation and application of the different components of the basic infrastructure, supporting local actors in the change process. How these local actors( municipalities, provinces and regional water authorities) reach the e‐ Government goals is largely up to them.
Besides these local actors also software vendors play an important role in reaching the e‐Government goals. Their challenge is to supply software solutions which are well aligned to central directives, infrastructure and standards.
2. Monitoring and motivation
To provide insight into the speed and the extent at which the basic infrastructure is being realised, implemented and used, a monitoring and governance infrastructure had to be implemented. From a basic need to monitor the progress of e‐Government, steps were taken to grow towards a more comprehensive and bidirectional monitoring system. In this chapter we will describe the theories applied during the development of the system.
2.1 Initial need
Initially, only a survey was conducted twice a year. In this survey the responsible parties for each of the components of the basic infrastructure were asked to indicate which municipalities have implemented the component and which have not done so yet. The results were shown in a map with all municipalities, their overall progress and progress for a selected component. Because the components usually consist of many technical and procedural parts, the definition of‘ implemented’ is often the subject of discussion. Thus, a need was perceived to measure more objectively and to provide municipalities with more and better actionable feedback. For the monitoring framework, two design principles were clear from the very start:
1. There had to be a unifying structure that could combine and expose all monitoring data and 2. Local actors like municipalities had to be seduced to participate by offering them something in exchange for their cooperation.
2.2 Motivational theories in the context of work and gaming
To be able to give proper feedback on a municipal level, the municipalities had to be involved more intensely. This required more effort from the municipalities and a willingness to supply detailed data, which could show some weaknesses in the progress within the municipality. So why would a municipality participate in all this? This was exactly the question we had to ask ourselves. How could we motivate these local actors not only to participate in the monitoring, but also to increase their efforts in realising the e‐Government goals?
We started by looking into motivational theories. Herzberg( 1959) divides between Motivators and Hygiene factors. Herzberg considers money to be a Hygiene factor, while( task) Enrichment and Empowerment are considered motivators.
Dan Pink( 2010) investigated motivational factors for professional workers and came to a surprisingly intuitive list of three elements: Purpose, Autonomy and Mastery. Like Herzberg, he considers Money to be a hygiene factor( frased as: Get money out of the way). Purpose, Autonomy and Mastery are widely applied in Agile software development methods like SCRUM, where motivation is essential for the performance of the self organising teams involved. We consider Autonomy and Empowerment to be related concepts.
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