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 and found they had little relevant in-house expertise and inadequate time to develop it.

 

The leading technology barrier identified by the project participants was the lack of existing expertise in Internet technologies and the limited amount of time available to them to develop it. Although the project teams were constituted primarily of technical staff, these individuals, like many government technical professionals, were unfamiliar with Internet technologies. One project participant, the MIS Director at a mid-size agency, stated “traditional MIS skills were not appropriate” to make determinations regarding the technical options available. The traditional skills of systems management, design and development, and network design and management did not provide the expertise necessary to analyze and evaluate options related to Internet technologies. Prior experience in technology applications did provide a general framework for learning about Internet technologies, but the specific skills and knowledge gained through more traditional uses of technology was to a great extent, non-transferable.

A second participant noted that “due to the nature of Internet technologies our ability to build upon previous knowledge was much less than in other projects.” One agency reported that its technical staff was only able to stay “a half-step ahead” of the public information staff in providing technical support for desired features of the agency Web site.

To be successful, participants realized that they needed to build and maintain a high level of expertise. Various techniques were used by the project participants to overcome their initial lack of expertise. Training, particularly inexpensive training, was difficult to find. Most agencies settled on buying reference materials and allocating time for learning. Project teams reported a need to make significant commitments of personal time in order to overcome the steep learning curve associated with Internet technologies. They indicated that the personal time commitments needed to become familiar with these technologies was greater than in any previous project.

Three agencies reported the use of a “quiet room.” In these cases, the staff who needed to become knowledgeable about new technologies were unable to do so effectively in their “home base.” The learning environment was characterized as “catch as catch can.” To overcome this barrier, these three agencies provided a way to remove staff from their regular work environment. Use of the quiet room allowed the staff to spend concentrated time on developing familiarity in the necessary areas. In all cases, the time spent in this special environment was limited to a day or two a week.

Compounding the lack of applicability of their traditional technical skills was the need to know so many new technologies. Most agencies reported that this need was greater in this project than in any prior project they had undertaken.

Participants responded to this reality by adopting a phased approach to Web site implementation. Participants focused first on basic Web services such as marketing and information dissemination. Simple graphics and straightforward design approaches were adopted. Meanwhile, efforts were undertaken to become better informed about and experienced with technologies that would support interaction between the user and the Web site. The cost and performance workshop added additional insights into the resources associated with modest, moderate, and elaborate Web site implementations.

Even one of the most seemingly straightforward applications, information dissemination, requires the use of new technologies. For example, the Office of Real Property Services chose to provide Local Real Property Assessors online access to the Real Property Services Manual through its Web site. In order to take advantage of the hypertext features of the Web however, this existing document had to be reengineered for Web presentation. They realized that merely placing the 150 page manual online with no added features would have added no value to the publication. They needed to break the document into logical parts and build in links and search tools to help users take best advantage of the information. This task, ORPS discovered, was a huge one. Staff familiar with the publication and the necessary HTML tools reviewed the document and added the features that would ensure that users would find added value from accessing the manual online.

The rapid pace of change in existing Internet technologies and daily announcements of new products further compounded the barriers of lack of expertise, limited time, and the need to know a wide range of new technologies. The rate of introduction of new products is breathtaking. New versions of existing products may be released only months apart. New products that improve on “old” ones appear every day.

The daily introduction of new products designed to assist organizations with their Web sites places public sector developers in a difficult position. Limited budgets and purchasing restrictions do not provide enough flexibility to acquire, investigate, and assess many new tools. Public sector innovators often take advantage of free-trial periods to evaluate the many products on the market before making an investment. This approach has some important limitations, however. First, trial versions may not have all features. Second, the trial periods often expire before the agency can complete its evaluation and purchase the full-featured version of the product under the regular procurement process.

In order to mitigate the effects of this dynamic market, CTG provided participants with access to the Internet through the Capital Region Information Service of New York (CRISNY). CTG also provided the latest documented version of the Netscape browser and an HTML editor to support agency prototype efforts. This approach turned out to be beneficial to the participants as it obviated these preliminary selection decisions, enabled the agencies to focus on the basics of Web site implementation, and allowed them to begin to review the dynamic product market for opportunities to design the next implementation of their Web sites.

Participants found it a challenge to work with the tools selected for them by CTG while still keeping an eye on the constantly changing and growing product market. They had difficulty resisting the allure of these rapidly emerging technologies to ensure a stable and reliable service delivery environment. The agencies had to look to this market to remain aware of new opportunities, but they also had to resist the urge to implement each new technology as it was presented. They had to learn to balance their interest in new and emerging technologies with the need to provide service in a stable and reliable environment that customers can depend on.

Technical infrastructure, the hardware, software, local and wide area networking available in the agencies, was a barrier to all project teams although the characteristics of their individual infrastructures varied widely. In one case the participants did not even have access to a desktop computer. In other cases, particularly the larger agencies, access to desktop equipment and internal networking was not an issue, but for most participants from large and small agencies alike, access to the Internet from the desktop was not available when the project began. Their lack of access to desktop equipment, the Internet, and staff with relevant experience limited their ability to fully explore the service delivery possibilities available over the Web.

Various techniques were used to overcome the barriers presented by inadequate technical infrastructures. Several participants reported the need to commit both personal time and resources to access the Internet. In one case, a project participant brought his personal hard disk from home to the office so that adequate disk space would be available to store the necessary browser software. In another case, a staff member purchased a personal copy of the HTML editor so that he could continue to work on the agency’s site after the demonstration version of the software expired.

The fact that CTG needed to purchase browsers and Internet access accounts on behalf of the project participants is probably the most telling comment on the inadequacy of the technical infrastructure in every agency at the time the project was initiated. Even for those agencies with well-established, fully deployed networks, the external orientation of Internet connections was brand new territory.