Success criteria and critical success factors for e-government projects

Abstract

Project management as a growing profession requires various analysis on its domain of knowledge. One of the thematic areas of research interest is project success, which consists of project management success and product oriented success. The project success as a perceived success varies project to project as projects are unique endeavors to accomplish a pre determined objectives. The e-Government Projects as a distinct project type; could have a distinct set of success criteria as well as critical success factors. As it is an unvisited area of knowledge, it was defined as theme of this study. The Success Criteria are used to judge project success; while a set of critical success factors are used to determine the project management success of a project. In this context, what criteria can be used to judge the success of e-Government Projects? what critical success factors are determining the successful implementation of e- Government Projects? These two questions are constituted the research problem of this study. The findings of this empirical study identified by ranking a set of success criteria focusing on effectiveness of results of a project including meeting clients' satisfaction, meeting organizational objectives etc. In the case of critical success factors, top management support, clear goals, realistic schedule, effective leadership, end user commitments, effective monitoring and feed back mechanism etc are identified for e-Government Project Management. The traditional iron triangle criteria were not recognized as appropriate criteria for e-Government Projects. It could be recommended to devise a success criteria framework for e-Government Projects and a framework of critical success. factors for successful implementation of e-Government Project Management. The recommendations of this study are concerned areas of the ICTA, which carries responsibility of e-Sri Lanka initiative, within which, e-Government applications are devised and executed. Further study could be suggested to analyze relationship between success criteria and critical success factors for e-Government Projects.