An overview of the change management process in eGovernment

Since the late 1990s, governments at different levels in many countries have launched electronic government (eGovernment) projects. The emergence of web portals has signalled the advent of second generation eGovernment implementations, where a web portal presents a suite of commonly used services at a common access point. Effective operations of government portals help to organise, unify, and tailor citizen-centric views of government services. If eGovernment is to be successful, change management issues must be addressed effectively both within government organisations and within the community of users as they adjust to new realities. This paper proposes a model for the process of planning and implementing eGovernment, with particular attention to the change management process that moves government organisations from existing environments to the more complex and sophisticated environment of eGovernment. The model is demonstrated through its application to a situation involving multiple governments at two levels in the Canadian province of Ontario.