Abstract: A government is a huge and complex organisation, whose operations and strategic focus could be greatly
enhanced by the well focussed application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to support
improvements in productivity, management effectiveness and ultimately, the quality of services offered to citizens. While
the benefits of ICT in government cannot be disputed, there are several concerns about its success as well as the
strategies to be adopted in implementation of systems in various countries. In this paper, the characteristic challenges
that developing nations face, which make ICT implementation in government fail to succeed are identified and
synthesised. The paper presents results of literature review of case studies from both developed and developing
countries and preliminary studies grounded in the Kenya e-Government reality. The key factors are identified,
synthesised and categorised under common broad categories. This results in a rich picture of ICT implementation
experience that helps to identify possible solutions. A descriptive framework for categorising key factors in ICT
implementation in government illustrated with references to the literature is proposed. The input variables are
categorised into factors for success (drivers and enablers), and factors for failure (barriers and inhibitors). The output
variables are categorized into organisational and technological benefits. Finally, an action for success is proposed. This
action includes suggestions for increasing the impact of factors for success while reducing the impact of factors for failure
and use of available good practice.