CTG provides a neutral environment for innovative public sector projects.

With its location in the university, the Center offers government agencies, faculty, and corporate participants a neutral environment for mutual learning and experimentation. The Center is open to all federal, state and local agencies, and related nonprofit organizations, as well as any university faculty and private sector companies.

CTG projects are partnerships.

Each CTG project is carried out through an interorganizational partnership. Project teams usually consist of government agency staff, corporate representatives, and university faculty and students. Each partner should expect to make a significant contribution to the project and each should experience direct benefits from its participation.

CTG projects are conducted according to mutually developed project objectives.

The public, corporate, and academic partners in a project work together with a professional CTG project manager and staff to plan and carry out their objectives. The partners share responsibility for a joint project plan that guides their work throughout the project.

IT applications in CTG projects are prototypes.

Prototyping is a hallmark of many CTG projects. Prototypes focus on those areas within a larger system that have the potential for highest benefit, learning, or leverage. Through the prototyping process, project teams learn about how to use and combine technical tools appropriate to a particular business problem. The prototype and prototyping process give agencies critical experience and information to help them plan and build production-quality systems after they leave CTG. Prototypes are not production quality systems.

CTG projects are limited in scope and duration.

Each project is limited in scope to those elements which appear to have the greatest impact on government programs or operations. As a rule of thumb, projects should be completed in six to twelve months. Project resources from all partners combined generally fall between $250,000 and $750,000 in total value.

CTG supports projects with a variety of resources.

The Center provides a range of resources to each project. These include project planning; best and current practice research; management, modeling, and group facilitation services; hardware, software, and consulting services; use of the CTG Laboratory; access to corporate partners; and faculty and student involvement. CTG does not make cash awards.

CTG projects are conducted in the public domain.

The Center's main purpose is to provide a research and demonstration capacity that benefits the public sector. For that reason, all projects are conducted openly, fully documented, and presented to many audiences in detailed demonstrations and reports. Extensive information is made available through the Center's World Wide Web site.