A guide to portal/electronic services development. It helps organizations achieve proficient project management in developing gateways to electronic services. It discusses important challenges and the factors for success, addressing both the electronic services themselves and the gateways to them.

1 The Story of the Dozen Challenges.- 1. Challenge 1: Start-up... of What? Arriving at Common Goals for Electronic Services.- 2. Challenge 2: Thousands of Pages - From Project to Organization.- 3. Challenge 3: Messy Appearance - Organize the Usability Improvement Process.- 4. Challenge 4: Parallel Systems - Use Electronic Services Only When You Need Them.- 5. Challenge 5: Choosing the Future Technical Platform - Look Back, Look Aside, Look Ahead.- 6. Challenge 6: Cross-Departmental Integration of Data Resources – Don’t Lock up Your Resources.- 7. Challenge 7: Staff Motivation - Enrol the Staff in Your Team.- 8. Challenge 8: Poor Usability - Let the Users Be Your Guide.- 9. Challenge 9: Where is the Payoff? Some Benefits Come Later.- 10. Challenge 10: What is Our Role? From Monopoly to Service Provider.- 11. Challenge 11: Where Are the Users? Users Want Your Service, Not Your System.- 12. Challenge 12: Managing Administrative Tribes - Projects Don’t Fail Because of Too Many Enemies, But Because of Too Few Friends.- 13. Conclusions From the Dozen Challenges.- 2 Electronic Service Management.- 14. Introduction to Part 2.- 15. Cities and the Local Information Society.- 16. Conclusions.- References.