Definition of Priority Services and Value Targets

Abstract

In this chapter we discuss the step of the methodology which supports the definition of priority services and their quality value targets. As for the overall methodology, the general idea is that the choice should be driven by a clear understanding of

This chapter is authored by Gianluigi Viscusi.

In this chapter we discuss the step of the methodology which supports the definition of priority services and their quality value targets. As for the overall methodology, the general idea is that the choice should be driven by a clear understanding of

• the strategic/political objectives from the different layers involved (see Chap. 3);

• the elements composing the service as part of a complex system of values, impacting both the inner and outer context of intervention (see again Chap. 3); and

• the related qualities.

According to such an analysis, the planning activity results in a set of priority services based on the results of eGovernment vision elicitation (see Chap. 4) defining the macro – micro-objectives which develop them.

As shown in Fig. 8.1, macro- and micro-objectives depend, respectively, on the final intentions and associated strategies, resulting from eGovernment vision elicitation step; in the running example provided in Sect. 4.3 a macro-objective is defined on the basis of final intention Achieve internal effectiveness, while the micro-objectives are defined on the basis of strategies improving administrative processes and improving information management and coordination by means of laws or ICT.

Fig. 8.1

Relationships between eGovernment vision elicitation, macro – micro-objectives, and activities of the step

For example, to improve registry services is a macro objective to achieve internal effectiveness that can be implemented through the achievement of a set of micro-objectives such as

• (i) to simplify administrative procedures for registry services (specifying the improving administrative processes strategy);

• (ii) to deploy new proactive services which asks for innovation at the legal and technological levels (specifying the improving information management and coordination by means of laws or ICT strategy);

• (iii) to deploy services accessible with multiple channels as implementation of the macro-objective use innovative ICTs.

The chosen set of priority services and their related qualities should better fit the achievement of the new quality target values.

In this step we exploit the results of the previous steps of the eG4M methodology, namely the eGovernment vision elicitation, state reconstruction, eReadiness, and quality assessment steps.

These three steps provide the information supporting the choice of the services which are more relevant for the context of intervention for both what concerns the back office and the front office of the involved public administrations. In particular, we point out the following issues:

• The outputs of the eGovernment vision elicitation step are used to choose the appropriate macro- and micro-objectives.

• The outputs of the eReadiness assessment and state reconstruction steps are used to find the most appropriate services or cluster of services for the chosen macro- and micro-objectives.

• The outputs of quality assessment are used to define the relevant qualities and related values for services and other facets of the context of intervention.

As shown in Fig. 8.2, the step is composed of three activities:

• Definition of priority macro/micro-objectives, where for each macro – micro-objective identified in the eGovernment vision elicitation step, we define the priority ones on the basis of the results of state reconstruction and eReadiness assessment steps.

• Definition of priority services where the service package is defined on the basis of macro- and micro-objectives. The service package [94] discussed in Chap. 1 in other methodologies is usually composed of core services and support services; in our case, using the concepts proposed in [164], the service package is seen as composed of administrative services (the basic functionalities and resources offered) and value-added services (the functionalities and resources considered of value for the user).

• Definition of priority qualities and quality target values where priority quality dimensions for the chosen services are identified and the target values to be achieved in the time horizon of the plan are defined.

Fig. 8.2

Activities for the definition of priority services and target quality values

In the following we describe the activities leading to the choice of services and we refer to the running example. In Sect. 8.1 we discuss the definition of priority macro/micro-objectives, leading to the choice priority services described in Sect. 8.2. Finally, in Sect. 8.3 we detail the activity of selection of priority qualities for services and the definition of their target values.

1 Definition of Priority Macro/Micro-objectives

In Chap. 4 we have defined a preliminary set of macro- and micro-objectives for the running example. We now define their priorities on the basis of the results of state reconstruction and eReadiness assessment steps. We now briefly review the preliminary macro/micro-objectives identified in the eGovernment vision elicitation step:

• for what concerns the organizational and legal facets we have identified to simplify administrative procedures for registry services (MIO1 in the following) as a common micro-objective for the macro-objective effectiveness and the simplification of administrative activities macro-objectives (MAO1 in the following);

• for what concerns the service facet we have identified deploy new proactive registry services (MIO2 in the following) as a micro-objective of the macro-objective improve registry services as macro-objective (MAO2 in the following);

• for what concerns the technological facet we have identified the use of innovative ICTs (MAO3 in the following) as a macro-objective in order to provide services accessible with multiple channels as micro-objective (MIO3 in the following).

As shown in Fig. 8.3 improving registry services is important in order to satisfy the need for choosing services oriented toward user local needs. In particular, the high number of yearly requests in the running example and the high number of potential users are related to the critical phenomenon of urbanization of the rural population. In order to provide new proactive registry services, a huge back-office intervention is required at the organizational and legal levels in terms of

• roles defined by the law for different central and local public administrations involved in the service provision;

• reduction of hierarchical levels and distribution of responsibilities inside the public administration organization;

• improvement of the internal communication between organizational units of the same or cooperating public administrations.

Fig. 8.3

Specifications for the macro/micro-objectives from the state reconstruction and assessment steps

Finally, the widespread use of mobile phones, the high cost, and the low diffusion of Internet access decline the macro-objective of using innovative ICTs in terms of deployment of a technological infrastructure, supporting both a multichannel service provision and the public administration’s internal communication.

The information collected in the state reconstruction and eReadiness assessment steps allows to define the appropriate specifications for macro-objectives impacting on different facets of the context of intervention. It is important to note that at this level the different facets are considered as separated and self-referential from a system perspective. In this sense, micro-objectives are the real bridge toward the outer context or environment, and we can define dependencies and priorities between them.

As shown in Fig. 8.4 the deployment of new proactive registry services (MIO2) asks for a selection of value-added services besides administrative services. Nevertheless, value-added services cannot be deployed without an efficient and agile back office dedicated to the provision of core administrative services (see arrow 1 in Fig. 8.4), as outcome of the implementation of the micro-objective aiming at the simplification of administrative procedures for registry services (MIO1). Finally, the technological infrastructure supports the provision of services accessible with multiple channels (MIO3) for a back-office and an organization (see arrow 2 in Fig. 8.4) which should be made efficient and agile for MIO2 as a final micro-objective (see arrow 3 in Fig. 8.4).

Fig. 8.4

Dependencies and priorities between macro- and micro-objectives

In conclusion, the type of services chosen is strictly related to the requirements of the micro-objectives, namely (i) value-added services in terms of proactiveness for the final user are associated with MIO1, (ii) administrative services are related to MIO2; and (iii) value-added services considered at technological level as mobile and multimedia services are associated with MIO3.

2 Define the Priority Services

For each macro/micro-objective we now identify the existing available services. This activity is carried out with the support of the repository of services described in Sect. 5.1.2, using information retrieved during the state reconstruction step.

Administrations provide many services to citizens. At this stage, we will consider services in the repository classified by events of life; in particular, as shown in Fig. 8.5, we focus on the services related to the change of residency. In the running example the services retrieved from the repository have to be associated with the micro-objectives and classified on the basis of their function (see Sect. 5.1.2) and their type (administrative or value-added services). It is important to note that the available services are mainly administrative and related to the MIO1 micro-objective, while value-added services related to other micro-objectives are provided by other public administrations in the repository (see column owner in Fig. 8.5).

Fig. 8.5

Services in the repository for the change of residency

Indeed, the preliminary analysis of the services retrieved from the repository suggests two different choices in terms of priority; investments for (i) the improvement of available administrative services and (ii) the reuse of existing value-added services provided by other public administrations. Nevertheless, in order to properly choose priority services a further evaluation is required.

In order to evaluate the relevance of the services for citizens, we consider for each service the information resulting from the state reconstruction step. The evaluation in Fig. 8.6 considers the following properties:

• the number of potential users;

• the yearly frequency, namely the number of single requests of the services in a year;

• the public value (see Sect. 4.1) related to the realization of macro- and micro-objectives implementing the political vision;

• the level of interaction of the available services;

• the costs related to the number of interactions between organizational units and public administrations involved by the law;

• the technological infrastructure required.

Fig. 8.6

Relevance of the services chosen as the priority ones

Figure 8.6 shows that the priority services are the administrative ones related to the micro-objective “simplification of administrative procedures for registry services” in Fig. 8.5. This latter is related to macro-objectives impacting mainly at the organizational and legal levels (see Sect. 4.4), confirming their role in enabling the main macro-objective of “improving registry services.”

Indeed, the administrative services for the change of residency are support services having public value when provided in a coordinated way and at the same level of interaction. This objective can be reached only with an efficient back-office leading to high organizational costs besides the technological costs related to the evolution of the actual infrastructure. The intervention will also provide the support required for the reservation of medical examination service, an administrative service related to the provision of services accessible with multiple channels (MIO3 of the macro-objective “use innovative ICTs”).

For what concerns value-added services (see the two priority services highlighted at the bottom of Fig. 8.6), they have a second-order priority and their potential reuse of available ICT solutions have relevant costs, mainly in terms of governance between involved public administrations.

Nevertheless, a potential service package can be designed by integrating the “reservation for medical examination” administrative service with value-added services from other public administrations (see arrows in Fig. 8.6), such as the call center for information on the change of residency process and an information service on the state of the case (by sms, e-mail, or text-based posts).

The other value-added services have low priority for the following reasons. The service providing information on how to change the utilities (gas, electricity, etc.) even if characterized by high volumes of users and yearly requests is not a priority because of its interaction level which needs a routine activity of update and alignment of the service-related information. Finally, the service providing family information on where schools or kindergartens are located is relevant but with a second-order priority too because of the actual level of administrative service provision asking for higher investment priority.

In this activity our service-oriented methodology has supported the choice of a set of priority services, which are mainly administrative in the running example. In the following, we define priority qualities for the different facets involved in service provision.

3 Definition of Priority Qualities and Target Values

This activity is based on the data available in the registry of qualities (see Chap. 7), resulting from the quality assessment step and new survey carried out by the service users. It is important to note that besides service qualities, we also define the relevant qualities for the legal framework, organization, data, and technologies related to the priority services. In order to support the reader, we reproduce in Fig. 8.7 (which was already discussed in Chap. 7) the qualities identified for the administrative services with their current values.

Fig. 8.7

Current values for administrative services in the running example

Besides Fig. 8.7, we consider Fig. 8.8 which shows the qualities and their current value for the macro- and micro-objectives related to the use of innovative ICTs for the improvement of temporal accessibility by means of multichannel access to services. As discussed in previous sections and shown in Fig. 8.3 these macro- and micro-objectives have been considered in the running example as mainly related to the service and technological facets of the context of intervention.

Fig. 8.8

Current values for value-added services in the running example

In this context, indeed, accessibility is strictly related to value-added services, asking for a high cost of intervention due to its actual low values, namely the physical desk for 99% of services and only 2% of sites physically accessible (see Fig. 8.8), and the availability of technological services only from other administrations.

In order to identify the priority dimensions to be considered for the definition of final eGovernment projects on the basis of available information, we now produce a qualitative evaluation of the impact of quality dimensions on macro-objectives. In Fig. 8.9 we first report the relevance of the quality dimensions for the macro-objectives considered in the running example by adopting a five-point scale from no when there is no relevance at all to yes for a full relevance; intermediate values are Low, Medium, and High.

Fig. 8.9

Relationships between political objectives and quality dimensions in the running example

We now consider the results of Fig. 8.9 and in particular the quality dimensions with high relevance for a given facet of the context of intervention. Figure 8.10 shows each quality related to its main quality dimension and facet: in the running example the resulting characteristics are efficiency and accessibility. In Figure 8.10 arrows represent dependencies between qualities for different facets as a priority path.

Fig. 8.10

A priority path for qualities

The first quality to be considered is the user time at the service level in order to improve registry services (see arrow 1 in Fig. 8.10). This improvement is strictly related to a simplification at both the front office (e.g., by unifying the request points) and back office (e.g., by reducing the administrative procedures and organizational units involved by law). Nevertheless, as we have seen in the quality assessment step the simplification of administrative activities is constrained by the low level of accountability and completeness of the legal framework.

Due to these issues, user time has a priority in terms of improvement of the quality of legal framework for MAO1 aiming for the simplification of administrative activities (see arrow 2 in Fig. 8.10).

As seen above, this simplification in the eGovernment vision is strictly related also to the second facet of MAO1 aiming to improve the effectiveness of the administrative activity at the organizational level. The high relevance of the level of simplification for both the facets of MAO1 makes this quality the third to be considered in order to improve service provision time at the service level (see arrow 3 in Fig. 8.10).

A comment on Fig. 8.10 points out the resulting priority of efficiency for administrative services, and in particular of efficiency-related qualities impacting at the organizational and legal levels. Indeed, the service-oriented approach of the eG4M methodology allows to identify quality priority not related to technology as preliminary requirements for a technological initiative.

Taking these issues into account, the priority path in Fig. 8.10 shows how in the running example temporal and channel accessibility for the improvement of service provision time (see arrow 4 in Fig. 8.10) depends once again on the effectiveness of the administrative activity at the organizational level (see arrow 5 in Fig. 8.10), which can suggest a horizontal initiative based on MIO1 at both the legal and organizational levels (see Fig. 8.3).

In the considered priority path, channel accessibility at the technological level has the lowest priority but a relevant role in enacting the results of initiatives related to higher priority qualities (see arrows 6 and 7 in Fig. 8.10). The path described in Fig. 8.10 allows to rank the priority of the considered qualities as follows:

• 1. user time (efficiency);

• 2. level of simplification (efficiency);

• 3. service provision time (efficiency);

• 4. temporal accessibility (accessibility);

• 5. channel accessibility (accessibility).

As final activity, we fix the target values of quality dimensions to be achieved in the time horizon of the plan. These values are influenced by (1) the length of the projects, (2) the political vision and macro – micro-objectives, and (3) the available budget, which may force the delay of costly projects.

Figure 8.11 describes the current and expected values for the quality dimensions in the running example classified on the basis of their resulting priority.

Fig. 8.11

Current and expected values for the relevant qualities in the running example

Note that we have expressed a unique global target value for the level of simplification of the four services related to the change of residency. The reason is that we perceive that the four services could be managed together. In the next phase of the eG4M methodology we will look for technologies that may enable such a choice.

4 Summary

In this chapter we have discussed the activities leading to determine an appropriate choice of services. In particular, we have discussed how to identify priority macro/micro-objectives on the basis of the outputs of the state reconstruction and eReadiness assessment steps. The choice of priority macro – micro-objectives is relevant in order to link the political vision to the operational level implementing the final services. Indeed, in this chapter we have described how the defined priority macro – micro-objectives lead to the choice of priority services and their related qualities. These latter exploit the outputs of the quality assessment step, providing details on the priority path of intervention for the different facets of the considered context. Finally, we have described the activity of definition of the quality target values to be achieved through the projects which result as output of the following steps of the operational planning phase.