At a global level, governments are implementing transformation projects and initiatives to respond to a changing society and as part of a drive for efficiency and cost savings. Considering the profile of digital transformation (DT) projects within the context of the Portuguese public administration (PA), the proposal for a framework was developed which contains a set of attributes and criteria to identify the feasibility and adequacy of the projects submitted for evaluation. The study identifies the set of characteristics, critical success factors, challenges, and difficulties of DT projects in this public administration context. A qualitative methodological approach was used, and a single case study strategy was applied. The proposed framework enables a better alignment of strategies, as well as an improved allocation of resources and the consequent improvement of the performance objectives defined by the PA.
TopIntroduction
Business and government have long recognized the potential of technology and both are strongly committed to ongoing digital transformation programmes. Datta et al. (2020) state that DT is able to bring about various benefits, such as the reduction of corruption and inefficiencies in the PA, as well as increased transparency and increased public confidence in the government resulting from accountability, which leads to an increase in security with regards data privacy and sustainability. Portugal's initiatives also reinforce this topic, examples being the launch of the second phase of the national strategy of Industry 4.0 for the digitization of the economy in 2019, with associated financing of approximately 600 million euros for the two years duration (European Commission, 2020a).
According to Schwab (2016), the impact of Industry 4.0 implies flexible cooperation between the virtual and the physical and also between industries at a global level, which consequently enables product customization and the creation of new operational models. This paper relates the analysis of a case study of the Administrative Modernization Agency (AMA) – a public institute that is responsible for the promotion and development of administrative modernization in Portugal. AMA operates under the auspices of the Secretary of State for Innovation and Administrative Modernization in the areas of administrative modernization, including simplification and electronic administration. The relevance of this study is related to the primordial role played by DT in the Portuguese Administration, as manifested by the development and management of new service models which enable citizens and companies to interact with the State in an innovative and efficient manner. Another relevant reason for this study is the fact that the public sector is part of the Innovation System (Freeman, 2008). The innovation system has now expanded its concept and is starting to be recognized as an innovation process (Godinho, 2013) as it is characterized by collaboration between different actors and the respective interactions among themselves, namely: companies, customers, financiers, and the State. AMA has a department called the Project Management Office (PMO), which is dedicated to project portfolio management, with more than 80 currently active projects.
According to Too & Weaver (2014), when a lot of projects are being carried out simultaneously, the effect is that the associated project management becomes more complex, due to its interdependencies and multiple implementations. The main driver for our proposal is the current absence of an adequate DT model, which is necessary to enable the evaluation as to whether a project meets the conditions to be approved. Accordingly, the objective of the study was to elaborate a proposal for a framework to be used to evaluate whether DT projects meet the necessary conditions to be initiated, based on the characteristics of projects of this nature and the context of the Portuguese PA. This framework needs to be simple to use, with the possibility be tested in the near future. The study is conditional on the following three research questions:
QInv1 - What are the main factors that influence the success of a DT project?
QInv2 - What are the main challenges and difficulties of carrying out a DT project?
QInv3 - How can a framework be built to evaluate the needs of the PA's DT projects?
Another objective of this proposal for a framework is to enable the organization and coherent integration of the diverse range of elements which are considered for the assessment and evaluation of DT projects.