Management barriers. Overall, the management barriers encountered were more severe than the technology and policy barriers. Participants believed that these barriers resulted from a lack of understanding on the part of management, that the Web is a powerful but extremely complex new approach to providing services to customers. The lack of clear programmatic goals and organizational roles and responsibilities were significant barriers to success as was the sheer number of organizational units and individuals that needed to be involved in these efforts.

Technology barriers. The agencies faced a range of barriers as they worked toward establishing a technical environment to support the delivery of Web-based services. They dealt with technical infrastructures that were inadequate to support development of Web-based services. They also faced a new and rapidly changing product market. In addition, they found they had little relevant in-house expertise and insufficient time to develop it.

Policy barriers. Overall, policy issues represented the weakest barriers to project activities. The lack of internal policies, in fact, allowed a wide range of freedom in selecting objectives for Web-based services and in selecting and presenting content. However, the participants expected policy issues to become significantly more important in the future. First, as more sites come on line, the linkages among them are likely to raise policy questions related to data sharing between programs and agencies. Second, as individual sites mature, they will move beyond information dissemination into more transaction-oriented areas where policy questions about documentation, ownership, authenticity, privacy and other concerns will become critical.