Development: the Greek Case. Leonidas G. Anthopoulos ... development of one-stop e-Government portals, and .... The web portal Bund.de offers more than ...
The Impact of Enterprise Architecture’s Absence in e-Government Development: the Greek Case Leonidas G. Anthopoulos, Vasilis Gerogiannis, Panos Fitsilis Project Management Department, TEI of Larissa, Greece lanthopo, gerogian, fitsilis{@teilar.gr}
Abstract Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a dynamically evolved area, suggesting frameworks and methods to handle complexity and change in an enterprise or in a public agency. Major international e-Strategies follow EA frameworks, which oblige distributed authorities to design and implement their eGovernment projects under specific standards and directions. In Europe, European States implement their e- Strategies usually according to European political objectives, directives and frameworks, but not under a common EA. Some European countries have developed their own EAs, while others limited their efforts in aligning their strategies to the European one. In this paper we present the EAs followed by major e-Strategies, together with their recent outcomes. On the contrary, we present eGovernment implementation in Greece, where no EA was followed. We use some tenders’ data in order to present the impact of EA’s absence in project design, implementation and sustainability.
1. Introduction According to Doucet et al., the term “architecture”, when used in the context of abstracting the enterprise in order to identify scope, function and relationships, describes the design and function of an organization [1]. Enterprise Architecture (EA) uses the abstracting results from the architecture to align strategy, business methods and technology elements across the organization, implementing a detailed blueprint of systems, data and technology. Furthermore, it provides the standards to implement best practices in the organization, such as strategic planning, capital planning, information technology (IT) libraries of standards, and program, quality and human resource management [2, 3]. EA is part of Enterprise Modeling (EM), which is the “art of externalizing enterprise knowledge” in order to determine the architecture of enterprise systems [4]. EA becomes the most highly adaptive technique for architecture modeling in public and private sectors, suggesting frameworks and methods to handle complexity and change in an organization [5]. Most Governments adopted EA in order to coordinate and implement their e-Strategies. Major
e-Government strategies followed different types of EA according to their willing to implement their missions and to their maturity, and they succeeded in achieving their primary targets such as the development of one-stop e-Government portals, and in modernizing the internal procedures in public administration. In Europe, the European Governments agreed upon e-Europe and i2010 action plans, concerning their route towards a European Information Society. European plans of actions specified the primary targets for e-Government, together with the timeframe for the implementation of these targets, and with the funding that was allocated for these actions. European central authorities have the responsibility to coordinate and manage both central activities, and framework programs implemented by the European states. European authorities defined the directives and some frameworks to coordinate member states in their missions: telecommunication directives for instance the European interoperability frameworks are only some of the libraries that were delivered to the state Governments. Beside the central direction, European states have not performed same in e-Government [6, 7]: some countries delivered e-Europe targets in time, while others requested extra time to implement them; eGovernment penetration is high in some countries, while others are still in the beginning of digital public service offering. Additionally, some European countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany implemented their own EAs to support further their strategies. In this paper we examine the Greek e-Strategy, as a representative European case where no EA was applied in e-Government implementation. We use data extracted from the analysis of various tenders, in order to present the lack of central standardization, which can cause in project’s success and sustainability. In the following section 2, we make a comparison overview on the EAs applied in major e-Government plans. In section 3 we present the Greek case, while in section 4 we present the findings from the investigation over various tenders. We estimate that the differentiation on cost and time estimation, and on deliverables’ specification is the result of the EA’s absence. A centrally defined architecture could
guide Greek authorities and support their efforts in digital public service implementation.
2. Literature Review Literature [8, 9, 10] demonstrates the application of EA on e-Government strategies. The importance of an EA existence could be associated with the variety of e-Government projects: they concern infrastructures, software and e-service development, training on IT skills, and diffusion initiatives etc. Major cases have used an EA for their implementation, as we present later in this section. However, today, EM’s market penetration is about 8% in US and 7% in Europe according to Gartner Group [4]. EM markets are still perceived and measured as separate from the operational enterprise systems and solutions. Most EM projects are performed disjoint from the operational environment and solutions being modeled. In this context it is obvious that the purpose of EM is mostly used for human sense-making about the enterprise’s mission and structure, delivering common understandings across disciplines and processes. EA on the other hand, arises as the dominant market, rapidly in US and rather slowly in Europe. Today the EA market offers tools to get overviews of IT systems and operational solutions of the enterprise, aligning new information technology initiatives and strategic investments, and to maximize outcomes from these investments. The United States (US) Federal Government’s eGovernment strategy [11] aims at the transformation of public administration into a citizen-centered, results-oriented and market-based e-Government. Extensive funding is being invested on eGovernment projects. All distributed websites from State Governments and local authorities are accessible from a one-stop e-Government portal called the USA.gov, while the e-Authentication platform provides secure services and preserves privacy during public transactions. The Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) [12, 13], which was inspired from Zachman’s framework [14] supports the US strategy. FEA adopted the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) model [12], containing the business, information, information systems, and data and delivery architectures. Moreover, FEA is a Foundation Architecture type [1], meaning that it supports the administration to identify and understand its public procedures. European countries have agreed on the eEurope Action Plans, describing ways of building a European Information Society. According to the previous eEurope 2005 plan [15] –for instancepublic authorities in all member countries should offer 25 digital public services by the end of 2005. Recently, European Council adopted the i2010
Strategic Plan [16], where “innovation” and “inclusion” have become the main priorities for an “open information space” in Europe. European central Agencies did not build a specific EA for eGovernment. However, e-Europe strategic plans contained the mission defined by the Information Society Directorate General and approved by the European Council. European voted Directives support the implementation of e-Europe strategic plans, whose coordination and supervision was assigned to the Information Society Directorate General. European member countries had to compromise their national strategic plans to eEurope. Furthermore, the British strategic plan [17] runs under the coordination of the Office of the e-Envoy. Direct.gov portal has been implemented under UK’s strategy, from where public services are offered centrally, while the Government Gateway is a central system that interconnects systems with different architectures and data structures, and establishes user authentication for all public agencies and civil servants. The e-GIF (e-Government Interoperability Framework) [18] provides a range of standards for data formats and protocols, in order to establish interoperability between different systems. British Government designed and approved its EA on 2005 [19] called the “cross-Government Enterprise Architecture (xGEA)”, describing the common “business-led vision” and procedures for UK’s Administration. Moreover, Germany has built the BundOnline 2005 strategic plan [20] for its Information Society framework program, which contained specific targets for e-government. The web portal Bund.de offers more than 450 different public services from more than 100 agencies. German Federal Government wants to make the Bund portal the main information platform for its public Administration, and a citizencentred and open environment. German EA is called the SAGA Framework [21] and contains -centrally selected- common solutions and standards for ICT projects in German Administration. Furthermore, the framework presents different perspectives that the ICT architecture designers in public Administration must follow for e-Government projects. On the other hand, the Federal Government of Canada designed its e-Government strategy in 1999 entitled the “Government on-Line (GOL)” [22], aiming in the availability of all digital public services until 2004. By 2001 the Canadian one-stop eGovernment portal became available online. Government on-Line strategy has evolved to the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Strategy [22]. Service orientation is defined as “the planning and delivery of all services by formally componentizing each of the services and their subordinate services such that the overall collection of services work as a whole and supports a high level master-plans”. The Canadian SOA can be considered as its EA since it
contains the vision, the rules and the methods for eGovernment to be complied by all public agencies. The Canadian SOA is an Extended Architecture type [1], succeeding in the simplification of the internal procedures in the public administration.
3. The Greek e-Strategy The Greek Government signed the e-Europe action plans and initiated its strategy for the Information Society by 1998. The resulted plan was called the Information Society Framework Program and it was assigned to a special committee to run its implementation. The committee was called the Special Secretariat for the Information Society and it was supervised by the Ministry of Finance and Economy, showing that Greek strategy prioritized proper alignment to European economic obligations. E-Government evolution in Greece was part of the national Information Society strategic plan. The political objectives for e-Government were aligned to the European ones. E-Government action plan was analyzed in the following nine (9) special actions, funding projects varying from physical service office installation (KEP), to digital public service implementation, and to training courses for public servants. Digital public services varied from usual administrative procedures, to tele-care and e-health transactions. It is obvious that the Greek e-Government strategy extends usual administrative procedures and e-Services, and its implementation was distributed to multiple agencies complicating the whole procedure. From these agencies, the General Secretary of Public Administration of the Greek Ministry of Interior was mainly responsible for Greek administration’s modernization. It implemented the KEP offices, the common interoperability framework (Greek e-GIF) and a one-stop portal for public services called Ermis (www.ermis.gov.gr). Additionally, this General Secretary guides all municipalities and local agencies’ e-strategies. Additionally, the Greek Observatory for the Information Society was setup on 2005 and its purpose it to carry out investigations regarding the Information Society progress in Greece. The Observatory delivers its results to the Special Secretariat for the Information Society, in order to improve the Greek strategy. The Greek Information Society Framework Program has been updated to the Digital Convergence Framework Program defining strategic vision for the 2013. This program aligns Greek objectives to the European ones contained in the i2010 Action Plan. The main targets of the recent Greek program aim in social cohesion and participation. The updated Framework Program does not contain a separate action plan for e-Government, but it incorporates e-Government in all different
priorities. Although this Framework Program is at the beginning of its implementation, it seems that it can deliver more interoperable services because, it considers the public administration as a “unit” that offers public services. However, it is useful to analyze the outcomes of the Information Society Framework Program that ended last year in Greece: according to the official documents published by the Special Secretariat [23] over 6.000 separate projects were executed under the Information Society, 1.600 of which referred to eGovernment and they were funded with €866 millions in the period 1998-2008. The e-Government projects delivered nine (9) public services online, which was the primary target of the e-Europe action plans. However, only 5 from the above services interoperate and they are fully available from the Ermis one-stop portal. Additionally, all public agencies were interconnected on the common public SYZEFXIS broadband network, offering the necessary infrastructure for further modernization and cost savings in the public sector. A 37 percent of the civil servants have been trained on ICT skills, improving internal efficiency in Greek administration. The Greek interoperability framework was defined while a one-stop eGovernment portal was developed. Public services are grouped in life-event logic, while all future projects have to interoperate with the one-stop portal according to the Greek e-GIF model. All of the above projects did not follow common standards or an Enterprise Architecture, suggesting high risks for interoperability failures and for sustainability of the project deliverables.
4. Analysis of Findings The investigation of the Greek e-Strategy presented in the previous section, describes in detail an extended distribution of responsibilities to various authorities, and the alignment of the Greek action plan to the European strategy. The absence of an EA could complicate further strategy’s implementation process, since various agencies could design and execute tenders for IT projects. For the purposes of this paper, we investigated various tenders of two project categories: a) the implementation of Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) in Greek cities. In this context, we investigated 22 similar cases. b) The implementation of digital public services by Municipalities. In this context we analyzed 2 similar cases. All of the examined tenders was publicly available on the website of the Greek Special Secretary for the Information Society.
4.1 Metropolitan Area Networks The Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is a fiber-optic broadband network that interconnects all public agencies in a municipal, urban space. According to the Greek policies, each city that hosts a population of over 5,000 civilians, could apply and install a MAN. The implementation of MAN all around Greece was one of the biggest initiatives of the Greek e-Strategy. The responsibility for the application and procurement of a MAN was assigned to the Municipalities. We investigated the tenders of 22 MAN projects, all of which were coordinated by the Special Secretary for the Greek Information Society, concerning the determination of the technical standards and of the evaluation criteria. All tenders were composed by local universities and research centers in order to support municipalities in the identification the network’s architecture and plan. Our investigation showed that all tenders followed the same technical standards for MAN and the same evaluation criteria, but different evaluation models. Moreover, our findings (Table 1) show that project duration varied from 8 to 16 months, and cost estimation per network’s Km varied from €30.000 to €142.000. Our results confirm lack of standardization in projects’ characteristics and deliverables.
Table 1. Findings from MAN projects’ investigation
City Chalkida Grevena Florina Amfissa Farsala Vathi (Samos) Karditsa Thebes Drama Lefkada Preveza Komotini Corfu Livadia Edessa Thassos Orchome nos Ioannina Ptolemai da Atalanti Ksanthi
Budget (€)
Duration (months)
Km
Nodes
Cost / Km (€)
719.000 340.538 718.550 640.000 360.000
12 12 16 12 12
24,2 10,7 19,5 15,8 8,3
44 23 40 38 25
29.711 31.826 36.849 40.506 43.373
379.832 819.000 850.000 926.413 216.000 770.000 1.088.820 938.239 600.000 682.437 363.944
12 12 12 12 8 12 8 12 12 12 12
8,3 16,3 12,4 12,1 2,8 9,5 13,4 11,3 6,3 7,1 3,6
38 66 47 37 26 48 55 53 42 34 33
45.763 50.245 68.548 76.563 77.143 81.053 81.255 83.030 95.238 96.118 101.095
230.000 2.000.000
12 16
2,2 18,9
16 80
104.545 105.820
820.600 183.567 1.010.202
12 12 12
7,6 1,4 7,1
55 20 37
107.974 131.119 142.282
4.2 Digital Public Service implementation In this paper we investigate two projects that have been implemented by municipalities in Greece. Both cases aimed in the development of Municipal portal that could offer specific digital services. No central coordination for project design and procurement was applied on the examined cases. Our findings (Table 2) display an extended differentiation among these cases. More specifically, in Trikala case a groupware system was determined for service execution, while the Kavala case requested a workflow system. Additionally, different subsystems and architectures were identified for the projects deliverables. Extended differentiation concerned the duration and cost estimation for these projects. Concerning the procurement procedure, contractors’ profile was different; the evaluation criteria were the same, but different weights were assigned in the examined tenders. All of the above findings document further the lack of standardization, and the complexity of the eGovernment implementation in Greece, facts which could be avoided with the existence of a common national EA obliging common architectures, standards and interoperability from similar projects.
Table 2. Findings from digital public service projects’ investigation Title Kavala city Trikala city Budget € 312.558,95 € 283.855,34 Duration 8 months 10 months Deliverables Information system with Information system with 4 2 servers servers e-Government portal with e-Government portal with 3 7 G2C municipal services G2G services and 4 G2C Workflow system for services service execution Groupware system for Document management service execution and Content management Metropolitan ERP, systems. Document management and Online payment method Human Resource management system Online payment method Connected The Town Hall Six agencies (Municipality, agencies State Administration, Municipal Police, 2 Tax Services, Forestland Service)
5. Conclusions In this paper we focused on the impact that the absence of an Enterprise Architecture might have on an e-Government strategy. We began our approach with the examination of some significant e-
Government case studies around the world, which showed us that all implemented an EA to cover their special needs. We investigated the e-Government implementation in Greece, on the contrary, where no EA was designed or applied. For the purposes of our investigation we analyzed various tenders of similar projects. Our findings showed us that the lack of an EA influences the determination projects’ characteristics (cost and time estimation), on deliverables identification and on procurement methods. We strongly believe that an existence of common standards could lead to the avoidance of these alterations, and can strengthen the sustainability of projects’ deliverables. In this context and at a European level, a common EA for European states would support all countries who do not hold centrally defined standards. Additionally, it would initiate internal reorganization of both European Commission and state Governments, and public service further delivery and improvement, and it is be necessary for the development of European centric services and for the management of complexity of European administrations. The experiences from FEA and from Canada will be useful for such a change. Coherency management [1] will be a significant tool for the European Governments. The alignment of the European policy and market to such a change will be difficult, but it is also necessary since the complexity of the enterprises and the public sector raise further, and both the European and international environments become more demanding [24], since consumers demand more and better products and services, and the suppliers have less available resources. European Commission in this state could design a common EA for its mechanisms and for member states, which will deliver significant organizational changes for the European public sector, in order to align to the common EA. Fully customizable EA tools and methods will be required and designed by the European market, and significant outcomes can be produced (models and software applications), able to compete in international era. These tools and methods are expected to deliver significant technical change in both the European market and in existing management methods in the European public sectors.
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