Public sector executives and CIOs are being advised to join forces to implement successful e-government strategies. They must manage processes, people and technology on an enterprise-wide basis to enable successful e-government.
Dr Steve Hodgkinson, Ovum's public sector research director in Australia and New Zealand, draws on ancient mythology to introduce the idea of an e-government chimera to explain the contradictory tensions facing public sector CIOs.
He explains, "The chimera is a three-headed beast pulling the public sector in different directions."
The first head, outputs, is pulling towards a vertical focus on discrete services and programs, which leads to decentralisation and fragmentation.
The second head, outcomes, is pulling towards holistic policies that require collaboration and joined-up, integrated, horizontal solutions.
The third head, inputs, is pulling towards means rather than ends. To improve horizontal interaction across the sector, there is a need to manage people, processes, information and technology infrastructure on an enterprise-wide basis in order to create organisational glue.
The chimera's tensions arise from the fact that strategy and structure are out of alignment. On one hand, governments are seeking to implement e-government strategies that require improved horizontal interactions across agencies and departments. On the other hand, the structure delivers vertical accountabilities and tactical, fragmented management of key inputs such as people, processes and technology.
CIOs leading e-government programs bear the brunt of wrestling the Chimera and reconciling the tensions created by its three heads, while department and agency executives often remain focused on delivering their discrete outputs. Yet, according to Ovum, CIOs can't be expected to play the role of the lone warrior Bellerophon who, according to the ancient myth, defeated the chimera. The CIO needs to be part of an operational reform team.
Two things are required for CIOs to be successful in this battle.
The first is for innovative public sector leaders and policy entrepreneurs to step forward and join forces with the CIO against the chimera. "Experienced executives with a sound grasp of how to create sustainable public value need to support the CIO," explains Hodgkinson.
"CIOs will only win the struggle with the chimera if they can become part of a broader operational reform team, and if they build the capabilities to actually deliver on their strategic IT management responsibilities."
The second requirement is for CIOs to understand the nature of the Chimera and how it can be defeated. "It is not a matter of simply aligning IT with the business," says Hodgkinson. "The CIO needs to adopt a strategic management style that is more centralised than that of the public sector generally, creating ongoing alignment tensions."
Hodgkinson concludes, "The bottom line is that CIOs are engaged in a battle with one of the toughest operational reform monsters in the public sector today. Generations of bureaucrats have developed and refined the output-based management model, and it has served the public sector well. However, the strategy has changed and the fragmented approach leaves the public sector ill-prepared to deliver the government's outcome-based policy aspirations."
