During the summer of 1993, site-visit teams visited Arkansas, Arizona, Maryland, New Jersey, and Oregon to interview the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) lead agency staff about each state's child care management information system (MIS). The state information work group and experts recommended states with innovative, unique, and successful approaches to managing various aspects of child care programs. In each state, the site-visit team spent 2 to 3 days interviewing child care administrators, child care resource and referral (CCR&R) staff, programmers, and other MIS users. During these visits, the site-visit team obtained information on the state child care programs' background and evolution. Critical issues and lessons learned for other states include: (1) take time in the planning stages; (2) when implementing and developing a MIS, ensure close communication between policy and systems development staff; (3) involve the user at all points of development; (4) ensure that MIS staff understand existing child care policies and procedures; (5) obtain commitment from high-level program and MIS staff prior to developing the MIS; (6) resolve as many policy differences as possible before developing the automated system; (7) design the system to meet specific needs of the state, clients, and providers; (8) design the system to be flexible; (9) expect delays in the time required to develop an operational system; and (10) plan for comprehensive training. (Two appendices provide an overview of states' MIS design and architecture and a summary of states' organizational structure of child care and MIS.) (DR)