The Activity and Customer Centric Approach

Conclusion

This chapter has argued that a vital part of the PPR method is to map individual public employees to their individual users. This can help (re)build linkages between the financing, organizing, and implementing of public services. The six components of the activity clusters (content of the communication and work; the division of labor; formal and informal rules for communication; the tools available and the users capability of using them; the employee, and the technology component) are clearly challenges to seperate and realign. Even more challenging will be to bring the free radicals in to play and this is likely to be met by power and political games. The chapters in this book demonstrate that the in-house and transaction focused IT-applications dominate the picture, rather than the radical and revolutionary thinking as prompted by the PPR-approach.

This chapter has identified three key challenges for the customer and activity centric approach: time lag, inclusion/ exclusion, and negative regulation. Indeed these three areas will raise concerns when realigning the IT applications. It is equally important to be aware of these shortcomings is to keep the overall picture straight and carefully consider whether the three areas of concern are the exception or the rule. We believe that the former is true.