When?
In same terms, the answer is: ‘You undertake e-government strategy when the time is right’. In some public agencies, one hears managerial statement such as
‘We haven’t got time to plan strategically, we need this e-government application immediately.’
‘We have better things to spend our money on than messing about with data structures.’
‘I’d rather train my staff to use their computers, not to indulge in some planning exercise.’
e-Government planning will run into trouble if the head of steam is not present: if it is undertaken before key stakeholders feel the push of the drivers listed above and the pull of potential benefits. For organizations in which stages of e-government computerization are recognizable, this means that strategy only tends to emerge after Stage 3.