15

e-Governance Projects:
Exploring the Way to Success
By Sam Felix Pradeep Kumar and N Vijaykumar
Revamped policies, efficient management
and right technology form the magic concoction
to the success of e-Governance
T
oday, e-governance is no more an option
or something to be experimented with.
It is an important tool for transformation,
as is evident with the growing number of
e-governance initiatives. The last decade saw a
furry of e-governance projects being identifed
and initiated, but only a few of them have
been successful and launched. Most projects
though have the dubious distinction of being
delayed and a few of them were shelved too.
This paper is an attempt to search for the right
mix of technology and management that makes
e-governance initiatives successful.
MAKING AN e-GOVERNANCE
PROJECT SUCCESSFUL
e-Governance projects generally fall under the
category of very large projects and thus the
cost involved is signifcant. Large overlays,
clarity in governance vision and political will
and commitment characterize the success
parameters of e-governance projects. Failure
to foresee implementation challenges will most
likely cost the governments dearly as inferred
from the data below.
A single cancelled e-government project
on smart cards resulted in a loss of 698
million to the British government [1].
The National Programme for IT (NPfIT)
overran in cost by 450% to 10.4 billion
(approximately US$17 billion [2].
The Libra courts management system
overran by 237% to 341 million [2].
C- NOMI S of f ender management
IT system overran by 119% to 279
million [2].
In a study conducted by United States
Government Accountability Office, it was
identifed that 585 e-governance investments
SETLabs Briefings
VOL 9 NO 2
2011
16
out of 810 were problematic and placed them
under watch list in 2009. The astonishing fact
is that 72% of major federal IT projects were
on the management watch list. Table 1 shows
a 42 percent decline in the number of major
federal IT projects executed during the period
2004-2009. However, the average budget per
project doubled during the same period, from
$42 million in 2004 to $87 million in 2009 [3].
The key di f f erence bet ween an
e-governance project and any usual IT project lies
in the source of funds. When a project initiated
by a private enterprise fails, the funds of the
company are at stake. Whereas in e-governance
projects, the taxpayers money is at stake.
Implementing a successful e-governance project
will take care of the interest of all stakeholders
of a nation. There is thus a need to analyze
the factors that could lead to the failure of an
e-governance project. Analysis of these factors
and identifying the key learning elements will
definitely ensure that obvious mistakes are
not committed and projects are successfully
completed.
FACTORS FOR FAILURE OF
e-GOVERNANCE INITIATIVES
e-Governance can be defned as leveraging the
benefits of information and communication
technologies to improve effectiveness and
effciency of government activities. This results
in the empowerment of citizens and an increased
transparency of government offces. Thus, the
success of an e-governance project is dependent
on the applicability of technology so that it
benefts all the stakeholders. The projects are
also dependent on external factors like political
landscape, management control, etc. Factors
that could lead to failure of e-governance project
can be broadly classifed into business factors
and technological/project factors.
Business Factors
Polity
Political and administrative climate is the
top contributor to failures and delays in
implementing most e-governance projects.
Since e-governance projects often span multiple
departments and agencies, cross-department
bureaucracy is another key factor that leads
to delays and failures. Every department
has its own agenda, objectives and decision
criteria. An accommodating interaction amongst
the departments is hard to find. Workflow
automation is still at the lower level of maturity in
developing countries. More often, e-governance
initiatives are governed by political compulsions
rather than by social compulsions and needs. But
political fgures often do not own up initiatives
end-to-end. Also, constant bickering and frequent
buck passing amongst various departments and
agencies further contribute to delays.
Organizational Change
e-Governance is all about bringing a change,
being transparent in transactions and reducing
Year
Major
Federal IT
Projects
(associated
budget in
billions)
Management
Watch List
Projects
(associated
budget in
billions)
Percentage
of Federal IT
Projects on
Management
Watch List
(percentage
of budget)
2004 1400 ($59.0) 771 ($20.9) 55% (35%)
2005 1200 ($60.0) 621 ($22.0) 52% (37%)
2006 1087 ($65.0) 342 ($15.0) 31% (23%)
2007 857 $64.0) 263 ($9.9) 31% (15%)
2008 840 ($65.0) 346 ($14.0) 41% (22%)
2009 810 ($70.7) 585 (27.0) 72% (38%)
Table 1: Delay Trend: e-Governance Projects
Source: GAO Analysis of OMB Data
17
the wait time for approvals and clearances.
Information technology is one of the key
catalysts to bring about such a change. Moving
from a traditional operating model to an
e-enabled model calls for wide ranging changes
to be made at the operational levels. This calls
for additional training, skill upgrade and
bringing in more automation. A Herculean task
in the e-governance initiative is to re-train the
staff to face the new challenges. Resistance to
change is the key impeding factor. Imparting a
training program on any change management
program across the public sector undertaking
is a daunting task.
Process Re-engineering
e-Governance is all about change and making
things easier for government transactions. The
first step toward a successful e-governance
initiative is process re-engineering. This aims to
simplify the existing processes and procedures,
reduce the manual touch points and make the
entire transaction cycle citizen-friendly. For
e-governance to succeed, it is imperative that
the processes are simplifed and understood
by all stakeholders. It necessitates a consensus
across bureaucracy, political class, government
bodies and private sectors. Of course, it is
easier said than done. Process re-engineering
in a complex and diverse society is much more
challenging as it is diffcult to make all dots
converge on the same place and obtain buy-in
from all stakeholders. It is a time consuming
affair to design to be processes and get them
approved by the respective departments.
Diffculties in horizontal integration include
assimilating activities of multiple departmental
processes and delivering an integrated solution.
For instance, a single window concept means
that the services will still be delivered in a
fragmented fashion and consumers have to
approach multiple departments. This is another
key reason for the failure of some e-governance
projects [4].
Business Model
Attractive and benefcial programs have been
conceived for e-governance projects. But the
way such programs have been implemented
and rolled out is one of the major causes of
concern in developing countries. Given the
scale and the reach of such programs, a proper
implementation model is a critical factor for
their success or otherwise.
Funding Sources: There is no proper and
consistent funding source for such projects. As
e-governance programs span a long duration
of time, it is absolutely essential that such
programs are funded continuously to keep
them on track. Many of the projects that have
failed have been victims of non-funding by
the governments. It is often due to changed
priorities mid-course, budget and financial
constraints, political compulsions, etc., that
lead to a change in the funding pattern. Such
projects are either not successful or die a
premature death. One prominent alternative
to keep such programs funded for a long time
is to have public-private partnerships (PPP)
that help private enterprises fund the program
(partially or fully) and at the same time enjoy
the results. Models like build-operate-transfer
(BOT) are very successful in implementing such
programs.
Vendor Driven Initiatives: e-Governance
initiatives need external agencies to participate.
Typical examples are BOT models. But these
bring in their own set of complexities. The
entire implementation and business model is
left to private players. Making government
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Category of Reasons
Percentage of
Times Reported
Change in project requirements,
objectives or scope
55%
Change in funding stream 44%
Original baseline was inaccurate 14%
Cost or schedule overruns due to
project performance
4%
Cost or schedule overruns due to
contractor performance
4%
Other 41%
Table 2: Analysis Indicating Reason for Failure
Source: GAO Analysis of Agency Survey responses
departments work with the private players
is the first hurdle to cross. Secondly, not
many vendors/concessionaires are ready to
implement such initiatives. Though there are
suffcient controls laid out by the government
in PPP models, vendors have their own agenda
to drive and fnancial targets to achieve. Often,
this is in collision with the overall objectives
and mediations result in loss of precious time.
There are cases where PPP model projects have
been shelved solely due to failure of the vendor.
Management
It is just not suffcient to roll out e-governance
programs. Success of these programs lies
in managing them effectively and ensuring
that the implementation reaches all levels
of the society. Currently there are no proper
monitoring mechanisms to track the progress of
the project and take course corrections. Scope
change is very frequent in such programs.
Though an initial scope is defined, it often
evolves over a period of time. The baseline is
always a sliding window. Gaps in scope are
common and these are often not accounted in
when they are defned. The problem is more
pronounced as government departments do
not have the scope defned all at once. Due to
the very manner of working, departments are
slow in defning the scope.
Technological Factors
Stakeholder Identifcation
When an e-governance project fails to identify
the stakeholders correctly, it puts itself in the
path of failure. One such project in India was
aimed at creating management information
system (MIS). It failed as it lacked user
involvement right from the beginning. It further
resulted in lack of interest in other stakeholders
and after years of existence it was prematurely
terminated. If a project is to be successful,
different stakeholders should be identifed in
the beginning and they should be involved from
the initial stages and should be kept involved
throughout development and implementation.
Requirements Mismanagement
Government policies change frequently.
This has a direct impact on e-governance
initiatives. Changing processes and policies
affect e-governance projects as this translates
to modifed business requirements. Sometimes,
this might require a revamp of various features
that are already built into the system. While it
is agreeable that change is inherent in all public
systems, the extent of this unaccounted change
during the initial planning phase often results in
short-closed projects and bloated budgets. Even
a small change in the requirements can lead to
major changes in IT structures.
Change i n proj ect requi rement s,
objectives or scope is the most important
factor that often leads to re-baseline the project
numbers [Table 2]. Any government project
where the baseline changes frequently indicates
a lack of clarity or focus on requirement. It is
a known fact that the cost of fxing a defect is
more in later stages than during the requirement
19
elicitation phase. So in e-governance projects,
it is often seen that emphasis is not laid to
elicit complete requirement within the defned
schedule and scope. This explains why most
e-governance projects skip schedules or result
in products that do not have all the essential
functionalities built into the system.
Costing and Budgeting
Estimation is always a nightmare and it is more
so when the resources are limited and time
bound but expectations are high. This happens
in e-governance projects. e-Governance projects
are unique where estimation or budgeting is
done before starting requirements analysis. It
means that the government identifes the fund
requirement for a certain period and projects
are identifed in the order of importance based
on available funds. In the case of e-governance
projects that are characterized by changing
requirements, changing IT policy, complexity,
lack of domain support, dis-economies of scale
and complex feedback loops, even the most
advanced estimation tools and techniques fail
to live up to the expectations. e-Governance
projects are characterized by various types
and degrees of uncertainty and thus it is quite
possible that these projects run out of control
leading to a failure. In a scope triangle, if any
one side of the triangle is adjusted, the other
two sides are affected. Cost is just one side
of the scope triangle and if the project has to
complete within the estimated cost, then the
result might be longer.
Schedule Planning
Scheduling is an art and it requires skill and
expertise to arrive at a schedule that takes into
account all factors. In e-governance projects,
most often the project deadline is not arrived
at using project management best practices but
based on the governments desire to rollout the
initiative in the shortest timeframe possible.

Project Planning
Most e-governance projects are not properly
planned as often there is resistance from the
government to spend on the preparation of
project plans [5]. Sometimes, defnite project
plans exist, but they fail to perform what
they are expected to do. They have vague
or unachievable objectives with lack of role
clarity and expectations. Effective planning
and monitoring are necessary to help achieve
the goal.
Figure 1 overleaf highlights the various
factors that lead to failure of e-governance
projects, impact of failure and steps necessary to
handle failure. These are indicative factors that
are common across all e-governance projects.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A
SUCCESSFUL e-GOVERNANCE PROJECT
A few recommendations can be jotted down for
e-governance projects to be successful
New Business Models
There could be inherent problems within the
government structures that delay program
execution. These cannot be changed in a matter
of days and it needs a Herculean effort to bring
about a change. However, there are other models
like PPP in which private players partner with
the governments to design, implement and
run these fagship programs. Various types of
PPPs like, build-operate-transfer (BOT), build-
operate-own-transfer (BOOT) provide attractive
propositions for the private sector to work
closely with the governments. It is assumed that
the inherent issues faced within the government
departments will be reduced, if not eliminated
completely, when involving private players.
20
Capacity Building
The success of e-governance emanates from
the fact that sufficient capacity to handle
transactions is already available and can be
leveraged immediately. The success of an
integrated e-governance program depends on
a unifed backend infrastructure and suffcient
capacities planned at every next level. Without
a proper infrastructure e-governance programs
should not be planned.
Project Contract Selection
Contracts with vendors or the service providers
play a maj or role in the success of such
programs. Traditionally, governments have
been following the fxed price contract model
that provides the government with a predictable
cost outflow model and to a certain extent
transfers the associated risks to the vendor.
The other traditional model of time and material
are seldom used in e-governance projects.
However, utmost care has to be taken and strict
controls, checks and balances have to be in place
as the private parties will also have access to
critical data of governments.
Regular Skill Updates
Government sector is one of the largest sectors
to conduct trainings for its staff. While most
such trainings focus on the business and
process aspect of it, there is a visible paucity of
technical and soft skill trainings. In developing
countries, IT skills are not visibly updated
while e-governance projects require the staff
to be IT aware and be trained to use the ICT
features. Given the rate at which technology is
changing by the day it is imperative that the
trainings be conducted periodically. Soft skill
training is another area where the government
staff need help. Regular training sessions and
evaluations will help scale their user interfacing
skills and also appreciate business values.
Figure 1: Potential Areas of Failure of an e-Governance
Initiative
Source: Infosys Research
21
However, there are new contractual
models that have been developed to provide
incentives to vendors to take up and pursue such
projects vigorously. Transaction-based pricing
models that provide a share of the revenue
against each transaction is one such model.
License fees, risk-reward programs, etc., are
some of the contractual methods that can provide
the necessary boost to third party in committing
to project execution in a timely manner.
Pilot the e-Governance Initiative
Failures cost a lot to any government. One
way to understand the success (or the failure)
of such projects is to pilot the e-governance
initiative that will provide valuable insights to
governments and enable them to understand
the feasibility of implementing the initiative.
Once the system/application development is
complete, the usage/efficiency of the system
can be monitored by piloting the initiative
and rolling them out in phases. This will
help incorporate the lessons learnt from early
implementations into the later ones. Also, it
will enable the government to identify the
critical areas, work on them and ensure that
they are not taken by surprise when there is
a large scale implementation. The pilot phase
will be less complicated due to the size of the
project and will also offer more insights and
learning and act as feasibility study for large
complex projects. If the federal government
decides to go ahead with an initiative, it can
start with one of the states as a pilot initiative.
The key learning of this initiative can then be
incorporated before going with nationwide
implementation.
Project Size
Project size is a factor that makes e-governance
projects unique. Success rate is higher for
small projects [5]. Small projects are easier to
handle, require fewer people, estimation errors
are smaller and lead to tangible results faster.
In any e-governance project, stakeholders
involved are numerous, costs run into millions
and requi rements are vast. One way of
handling the size of the e-governance project
is to opt for small projects that enable better
tracking and control. The context of a project
being small will depend on many factors. But
the basic factor is to define the project size in a
way that ensures better control. This will avoid
situations where projects go out of control. It
will also enable the government to bring it back
to normalcy with certain corrective actions as
they are characterized by better tracking and
control. To illustrate, the government can take
a decision that it will only execute projects that
involve the following: (a) timeframes of less
than nine months, (b) simple and innovative
technology, and (c) effective change in business
process. This can be achieved by breaking large
projects into smaller components that can be
handled separately.
Governments have started recognizing
that an effective way to reduce risk is to break
large projects into smaller and more manageable
components. When governments attempt to
bring radical change to a business process
all at once, the probability of success is less.
This can be avoided by working through a series
of small steps. This will enable more control
and accommodate the changes in technology,
political or financial environment without
impacting the project in a big way. One way
of handling the size of the project is to break
down the business processes into modules
that can provide value to citizens, even if other
modules are not completed. The deliverables,
milestones and project tasks can be broken
down into smaller and independent tasks that
22
that cause the e-governance projects to fail
or get delayed. The success of e-governance
depends largely on the interplay between
man and machine. More often it is the man
part that predominantly contributes to delays
and failures. Unless a new breed of thought is
ushered in, the trend of failures and delays will
continue. Organizational change management
and effcient project management concepts need
to be applied right through the entire lifecycle
and a constant and effective monitoring and
management are some of the key strategies to
make such programs a success.
REFERENCES
1. Choudhari, R. D., Banwet, D. K. and
Gupta, M. P. (2007), Identifying Risk
Factors in for e-Governance Projects.
Available at http://www.iceg.net/2007/
books/1/28_411.pdf.
2. Swabey, P. (2009), IT Projects among
Governments Biggest Failures. Available
at http://www.information-age.com/
channel s/management-and-ski l l s/
news/1095512/i t - proj ect s- among-
governments-biggest-failures.thtml.
3. ht t p: //www. gao. gov/new. i t ems/
d081051t.pdf.
4. Mahapatra, A. K. and Mohanty, N.
B. (2010), NICEG - A SDLC Model
Specifically Designed to Address the
Challenges of e-Governance Projects in
Sahu, G.P. (ed) Emerging Technologies
in e-Government. Available at www.
csi-sigegov.org/ emerging_pdf/21_194-
202.pdf.
5. Sachdeva, S.(2006), Twenty Five Steps
Towards e-Governance Failure. Available
at http://indiaegov.org/knowledgeexch
g/25stepsegovfailure.pdf.
can help save time in the long run and thus
ensure adherence to project schedule. When
the tasks are smaller and defnite deliverables
are defned, it helps the project team to know
where they stand and thus guide the project
to keep it on course. Yet another way could
be to develop IT components with limited
initial functionalities. Later this can be used
as a base on which enhancements can be made
to improve the functionality to address the
concerns/needs of the citizens.
Requirements Management
Instead of sticking to an assumption that
e-governance projects are always characterized
by changing and incomplete requirements,
efforts should be taken to manage them better.
A proper change management process can
accommodate changes. But it has to be ensured
that the change management process does not
alter to suit any additional requirement. Any
addition in requirements that will impact the
efforts spent so for in the system should be
kept on hold and shall be considered for any
subsequent release. The change management
process shal l be wel l -defi ned, si nce the
inability to manage change properly is one of
the key reasons for the failure of e-governance
projects.
CONCLUSION
e-Governance projects are strategic to the
economic and social development of any
society. e-Governance implementations usually
span a long time and touch a large spread of
stakeholders. The success or failure of such
projects largely depend on the co-ordination
between vari ous stakehol ders, effecti ve
management and optimal use of technology.
Usually it is a combination of all such factors
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Authors Profile
SAM FELIX PRADEEP KUMAR
Sam Felix Pradeep Kumar is a Senior Consultant with Infosys Banking and Capital Markets Division.
He has good exposure to reuse and mortgage models and their implementation. Sam can be reached at
samfelix_k@infosys.com.
N VIJAYKUMAR
N Vijaykumar is a Principal Technology Architect with the Systems Integration unit in Infosys
Technologies. He has around 18 years of experience in the IT Infrastructure domain. He has vast
expertise in IT Strategy, IT Infrastructure Design, Technology Migration and Program Management. He
can be contacted at vijaykumar_n@infosys.com.