# Achieving Success in Intergovernmental Initiatives

Leaders from five U.S. and Canadian government projects that rely on
technology to deliver services and share information spoke to the
Partnership for Intergovernmental Innovation (Pi2) at their May 16^th^
meeting in Washington, D.C. These intergovernmental leaders described
how intergovernmental coalitions using new technologies could vastly
improve the efficiency and quality of public services.

Working intergovernmentally is a new way of doing business that involves
balancing different needs, interests and priorities between governments.
New technologies such as the Internet can greatly improve delivery of
public service, but it will take unprecedented cooperation among, state,
local, national, international, and private sector organizations to
achieve the kinds of performance improvements that are possible.

To share the insights learned at this meeting of intergovernmental
innovators, the Pi2 members identified eleven areas that are crucial to
the success of most intergovernmental initiatives. These include:

-   **Policy issues are the most challenging**. The technology issues
    related to intergovernmental services and programs are usually
    modest compared to the challenges of governance. The more difficult
    issues to resolve when working intergovernmentally are the
    overarching policy issues and the issues of decision-making,
    resource allocation, and conflict resolution. Organizational and
    cultural change as a result of the expansion of technology and the
    creation of new intergovernmental relationships must be addressed.

-   **eGovernmental guidelines.**  New, readily comprehensible
    guidelines for eGovernment programs, practices, protocols, and
    procedures\--including but not limited to the burgeoning roles of
    advanced technologies\--need to be promulgated by the requisite,
    responsible departments and agencies.  Such initiatives, undertaken
    at the State and local as well as the Federal level, then must be
    examined for feasibility, interoperability, and phased introduction,
    by a designated collaborative review mechanism.  

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-   **Trust is crucial for success and building it takes time.**
    Intergovernmental initiatives require a collaborative partnership
    that ultimately involves giving up control. In order to relinquish
    control, the participants must have trust in each other's motives
    and abilities. To build that trust, intergovernmental team members
    must understand the challenges that the other governments face.
    Every intergovernmental initiative demands a complete understanding
    of the needs and capabilities of all participating organizations. It
    also demands a full appreciation for how work is currently done, and
    how it is likely to change.

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-   **Shared leadership is critical.** Identifying strong leaders at all
    levels involved is important for maintaining commitment and keeping
    the project on track. Leaders must possess skills that include the
    art of negotiation, a vast knowledge of the culture and environment
    of partnering jurisdictions, and the ability to manage to a goal
    without direct authority over team members.

-   **It takes special project management skills.** . Successful
    intergovernmental initiatives require a mixture of traditional and
    special project management skills that address the engineering needs
    of the project and the "people" needs. Effective human relations and
    change management skills are critical to project success. One
    experienced intergovernmental manager says there is no "command and
    control." You need to be a social worker, psychologist,
    communicator, and salesman, as well as a very good manager of work
    and resources. As a project manager it is also crucial to provide
    incentives for your staff and remember to build this into the
    budget.

-   **Pragmatism is important.** Intergovernmental systems and services
    are difficult to design, fund, build, and operate. For this reason
    alone they must address a tangible, practical need that appeals to
    all participants. By focusing on real needs, these projects can
    build the credibility and trust it takes to stay involved and work
    toward win-win solutions.

-   **Traditional funding is an impediment to citizen-centric
    e-government.** Intergovernmental initiatives cross-levels and
    agencies of government, both horizontally and vertically. Mechanisms
    to fund initiatives where resources, responsibility, and
    accountability are shared are difficult to find. Without dedicated
    sources of funding for these initiatives, governments continue to
    build highly stove-piped programs and then try to connect them
    together. Instead, partners and sponsors must devise innovative
    funding solutions and develop cost-sharing arrangements that enhance
    collaboration rather than adding more overhead.

-   **Government must provide authoritative data to support democracy.**
    While much of the focus of e-government is on service delivery, an
    important role for government is information sharing and
    dissemination and ensuring the quality of that information for
    multiple uses. The infrastructures we build to deliver e-services
    can also be used to inform citizens and engage them more fully in
    public discourse.

-   **Privacy is not dead.** Privacy remains a major issue with
    e-government applications. When information is collected from a
    variety of sources, merged, and reused, the possibilities for
    misunderstanding and misuse mount. Personal information can be
    inadvertently revealed or inadequately protected when it leaves the
    setting in which it was collected. The issue has not been adequately
    addressed and remains a major impediment to the advancement of
    e-government.

-   **The biggest technology issue is infrastructure.** When multiple
    agencies or levels of government seek to share information and
    operate coordinated e-government programs and applications, they all
    need comparable technical capabilities. In most places, this is not
    the case. Some agencies have deep technical knowledge, systems, and
    networks. Others have different capabilities or much lower
    capabilities. This is especially true of systems that involve local
    governments. Building and paying for baseline infrastructure for all
    governments remains a major challenge to full realization of
    intergovernmental systems.

-   **Understand business needs.** No technology, however promising, is
    a substitute for sensible, well-integrated business processes and
    practices. These in turn demand data standards, and technical
    standards that all can adopt. New ideas such as XML offer an
    opportunity to address these interrelated needs, but by themselves,
    are an insufficient basis for building intergovernmental systems.