Linking service development methods to interoperability governance: The case of Egypt
While administrations, and especially e-government followers, have been recommended adopting service-oriented architecture (SOA) for the purpose of implementing G2G interoperability, the challenges of reaching this objective remain significant. General guidelines for service development and SOA governance are published, but in view of many self-contained units and IT departments on all administrative levels as well as widespread outsourcing of software development there is a lack of sharing best practices how to implement SOA step by step in the area of e-government. In particular, it is unknown to what extent administrations are able to follow existing service development approaches, and there is no research addressing the contribution of service development methods towards governance, i.e. developing and managing government interoperability. In this research the case of Egypt, where SOA was chosen as the main interoperability approach, has been explored in terms of to what extent the current approach to service development supports the interoperability governance, and what kind of changes in the development methods and their application would yield improvements in interoperability governance. The case analysis on practical and strategic level leads to proposing success factors related to linking the methodology of developing G2G services to the overall effort of interoperability governance. These factors, divided into interoperability problem perception, method scoping and deliverables, measurement of goal achievement, and methodological commitment, can be used as hypotheses in future research and as guidelines for improving the interoperability governance in administrative practice.
service development methods interoperability governance egypt government interoperability g2g services web services