Government seems to have even more trouble than the private sector in successfully applying new technology. The public policy choices and public management processes that are part of government make it an especially difficult environment for IT managers. Some contend that bid protests, relatively low government wages, and legislative interference lead large government information technology projects

This environment brings a layer of risks unique to the public sector. When added to the organizational, operational, and technical risks described above, they present a daunting challenge to public managers responsible for choosing, funding, and building IT innovations.

Limited authority to make decisions

By design, governmental authority is divided across multiple decision makers. Executive managers do not have a clear line of authority over operations. Their decisions are circumscribed by law, limited appropriations, civil service rules, and a variety of legally mandated procedures or court decisions. These restrictions do not blend well with the complexities of managing an expensive and complex IT project in a rapidly changing technical environment. Worse, as can be seen in the California DMV experience, when IT projects fail the common legislative response is to place more restrictions and more controls over the IT management process.

Multiple stakeholders and competing goals

Government programs are characterized by a multiplicity of stakeholders who often have competing goals. Customers, constituents, taxpayers, service providers, elected officials, professional staff, and others all have some stake in most programs. Some want more or different services, others want lower taxes or fewer rules. Understanding how different choices may affect each stakeholder group helps to identify likely conflicts and prevent unexpected problems.

One year budgets

Uncertainty about the size and availability of future resources weakens the ability of government agencies to successfully adopt new IT innovations. Most government budgets are handled on an annual cycle. While many agencies have developed planning mechanisms to cover a three to five year period, annual appropriations (influenced heavily by changing government-wide priorities) tend to negate long-term planning. As a result, funds promised for a project in the first year may not be continued during the second or subsequent years.

Highly regulated procurement

Most decisions to adopt emerging technologies are made through the traditional competitive bidding process. While the goals of competitive procurement are goals of integrity and fairness, the processes are often a source of problems and delays. Agencies write Requests for Proposals (RFPs) using the information they have been able to gain from limited research. Vendors spend large sums of money trying to develop the winning response. Time consuming, arms-length reviews and negotiations ensue. Losers often take advantage of bid protest procedures that can further delay contract awards for months-or even years. Due to insufficient project support or understanding by top management, IT procurement requests may receive low priority. The resulting delays can mean time and cost overruns which in turn yield negative publicity, decreased support from top management, and negative perceptions of the overall value of the effort. Commodity-based procurement, on the other hand, is easy for agencies to use, but assumes that they have all the information and expertise they need to design and assemble a high- performance system out of a catalog of parts.

Little capability to design or operate integrated or government-wide programs

Critics (including many public officials themselves) complain that different government agencies operate more or less without regard to the fact that they often serve the same people. The difficult fact of life is that government is organized mostly into separate programs that receive specific authorization and funding from Congress or a state legislature. Accountability rules and traditions demand that these programs be operated separately, and one result is the famous "stovepipe" systems of government. Because these isolated programs emerge from deliberate design, they are very difficult to coordinate, much less integrate. New technologies, especially the Internet, are making it feasible to present a unified face to the public, but the changes that need to take place behind the scenes in policies, accountability mechanisms, processes, data sharing, and records management are only beginning to be understood.

Extreme risk aversion

Government's business is public business. This means that most new ideas have to be implemented in full public view. An innovation "gone wrong" risks not only dollars, but also the credibility of an agency and its leadership with legislators, executive officials, and the public. It's not surprising, then, that government tends to rely on the "tried and true."