The Hague's viral development model of eGovernment services

Acronym of the case:

CDS

Web address of the case:

https://www4.denhaag.nl

Country of the case:

Netherlands

City/region:

The Hague

Posting Date:

9 June 2007

Last Edited Date:

02 July 2009

Author:

Krijn de Graaf (Gemeente Den Haag)

confidentiality | Identity | viral

Type of initiative

Project or service

Case Abstract

Personalization is key to successful eGoverment, but also an obstacle because of privacy and confidentiality issues which affects the ease of use. The Hague recognized this and built an identity framework as one of it's first online services. After the initial release it developed a viral development method to constantly innovate and extend this framework. This method resulted in bidirectional influence and use by other government organizations. In it's seventh year the method has grown to an leading example of software development within the government sector. It shows how government organizations can cooperate to accelerate development by sharing resources.

Description of the case

Domain

eGovernment

Topic

Sector

Education, Science and Research | Local/Regional Community Development

Start date - End date

January 2000 (Ongoing)

Date operational

February 2001

Target Users

Civil society

Target Users Description

For the use of the identity framework itself the target group consists of all customers of the City of The Hague. Examples of this are citizens, local companies, nonprofit organizations, other government organizations and even employees of the City.

Scope

National

Status

Operation

Language(s)

Dutch

Policy Context and Legal Framework

There are three national policies which are relevant to the case. These are national programs developed by the Dutch government organization ICTU which provides services and guidelines for the whole government. The programs are DigiD, OSOSS and PIP. DigiD is a central authentication service for all citizens of the Netherlands. This is related to the case in two ways. The first relation is the connection of the identity framework with the central service so that the citizens can authenticate at DigiD and use this authentication to get access to applications at the city. The second relation, and more important in relation to the case, was the development and the result hereof. The development of the connection was done in a joint-venture with another city which had already adopted the concept. The costs of creating the connection could be shared between the two organizations. OSSOS is the standards organization which is responsible for promoting the use of open standards and open source software for goverments. After realisation of the connection it was released to the community and adopted by OSOSS as a free product for other organizations. This is a clear example of the viral development the City is pursuing. PIP is a new program of ICTU and aims to deliver a personal webpage to each citizen. This personal webpage will be integrated with the different local services. One part of this integration is single signon between PIP and the decentral organizations like the City of The Hague. PIP is working on the realisation of a federation and is working close with partners like the City of The Hague to develop a joint concept and software to realise this federation. This is another example of the viral development.

Project Size and Implementation

Type of initiative

IT infrastructures and products

Overall Implementation approach

Public administration

Technology choice

Open source software

Funding source

Public funding local

Project size

Implementation: €49-299,000

Implementation and Management Approach

A viral development process has not really a single and same leader all of the time. It is driven by requirements and wishes from the participating organizations. These requirements are in principal shared by all, but not necessarily at the same time or with the same prioritization. Whoever needs or wants a solution for a single problem looks for partners, adapts a temporary partnership and creates the necessary concept or software. By contributing it back the problem is solved for the whole pack. The management process involved in managing the structure of the viral development itself is stable based on the performance of the participating organizations on the long term. Some examples of changing partnerships are City of The Hague and â€˜s-Hertogenbosch for the DigiD Gateway development, City of The Hague and Amsterdam about the concept and ICTU/City of The Hague about HAAGid. There have been partnerships without involvement of the City of The Hague like for example the ICTU/â€˜s-Hertogenbosch partnership for employee/DigiD connection.

Impact, innovation and results

Impact

The viral development method is not new and innovative in the same way as new application, a component or a new trick. It is new and innovative in the way it changes the core of eGovernment itself. The concept of viral development is based on the way universities share their research combined with the way open source software is developed. This combination creates an inspirational and innovative environment in which solutions are jointly developed in constantly changing partnerships. This leads to an accelerated implementation for lower costs, better quality and quantity without damaging the own identity of these organizations. The viral development creates an ecosystem where ideas, experiences, concepts, architecture, processes and software are shared to create a multidirectional influence between organizations. By sharing, the whole eGovernment stack a better understanding and integration of otherwise separate eGovernment services is achieved, both within the organization as across organizational boundaries. To become truly and enduring viral the influence has to happen at multiple levels and multidirectional. This way it is assured that the overall influence is more persistent and has more change of fullfilling its task within the ecosystem. It also takes care of the assurance of the involvement of all management levels instead of just one. By starting to use the viral development model The City of The Hague did not only achieved its goals, it did it much faster and with less resources. With its model already in place The City of The Hague expects to see even more return of investment in the near future as the model gets more mature and more partners are joining, also outside of the goverment space.

Track record of sharing

Best practice means leading by example. The City of The Hagueâ€™s viral development model has influenced other government organizations on several levels and has had both a direct an indirect impact on the way eGovernment services are implemented in the Netherlands. Part of the viral development model is spreading the software, concept, experiences and ideas to other government organizations. Some of the results of the model and the model itself has been implemented. Examples of this are the municipalities of â€˜s-Hertogenbosch and Amsterdam and provinces like Utrecht who completely implemented the results and accompanying model on their identity framework. On a higher level The City of The Hague has inspired and contributed to national initiatives like DigiD, OSSOS and most recently PIP. In the last few years visitors from outside the country (for example Norway and China) have been a guest at the City of The Hague to discuss eGovernment services and the implementation of these.

Lessons learnt

Lesson 1 - The first and most important lesson is that viral development is the prefered way of developing eGovernment services. By sharing resources the development process is accelerated to a level no single organization could get by itself in the same timeframe or budget. It creates an environment where a organization gets the maximum return on investment with its resources. This is a classic example of the whole being bigger then the sum of its parts. Lesson 2 - The second lesson is that eGovernment services are complex and can be easily confusing, focus is easily lost. By implementing viral development the focus is more spread across resources and organizations, each with their own wishes, resulting in the focus being more directed on a single business desire. This leads to improved and faster quality of the products from the viral development. More eyes and resources create simply better products. Lesson 3 - The third lesson is that size does not matter in viral development. By becoming part of the viral development environment bigger and smaller organizations share the burden and the results. This leads to a higher quality of the overall eGovernment implementation of both big and small.

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