The Argentine IT Professionals Forum: Building the Basis for the Back Office Through Communities of Practice

Abstract

This chapter introduces the experience of the Argentine IT Professionals Forum (ITPF) that enriches the definition of processes involving the tasks of e-government. The ITPF has become a cross-agency network that involves all the IT professionals of the public administration. It was created in 2002 as a response to the institutional crisis in Argentina in order to solve problems associated with the IT areas. The most important contribution of the ITPF is the basis for the back office as an interesting management model, theoretically known as “communities of practice” (CoPs) and networks, which have become core organizational tools as far as carrying out difficult innovation processes, such as the development of free software, cross-agency applications, and interoperability. However, traditional government structures have found it hard to deal with this kind of processes. Among the specific tasks involved, it is worthwhile mentioning the development of suitable software, the creation of cross-agency consensus, the generation of institutional networks, and so forth.