Employees' Participation in IT-Projects in the Public Sector: Mapping Participation to the Project Lifecycle

Employee participation in IT projects in the public sector is argued in the literature as a critical factor for the success and acceptance of IT. However, studies on employee participation reported on the lack of end-users participation in the public sector and on the need of improvement of participation concepts. This article investigates different participation practices and used methods for participation within different approaches such as Human Centered Design, Ethnography, Contextual Design and Human Resource Management, and explores opportunities for participation across the system developement life cycle in the public sector. The findings reveal a variety of participation opportunieties across the whole process. Finally, implications of these findings are discussed with suggestions for future research.