Steering e-Government Projects from Failure to Success: Using Design-Reality Gap Analysis as a Mid-Implementation Assessment Tool

As a case study, the paper uses a partial failure / partial success land management information system being implemented in one Ethiopian city. The project has made retrieval of land information quicker and simpler but is only partly implemented, and is still – on occasion – circumvented by public servants for personal gain.

To understand why the project had partly failed in some ways, researchers used the design-reality gap framework, which analysed the shortfall between design expectations and implementation realities. Drawing data from four stakeholder groups, the analysis showed more-serious gaps around management systems and structures, staffing, and stakeholder objectives and values; and less-serious gaps around some of the e-government system components.