Delivering Smart Cities

Why successful smart city delivery starts with an educated client

By Philip Ward, CEng MICE F.ISRM MAPM | Director | Strategic Adviser | Ward Advisory Group

All cities comprise complex systems-of-systems. Transport, utilities, buildings, communications, public safety, public realm, digital infrastructure and city operations are individual systems, with multiple interfaces and interactions with each other and with city users. Increasingly, technology and data connect these systems in ways that create enormous opportunities to improve how cities function.

Yet this connectivity also creates complexity. The question is not just, “What can technology do?” but also, “How do we deliver a smart city that really works?”

The answer starts by recognising that this is not simply a technology project. Delivering a functioning smart city requires a complex programme of interconnected physical, digital and operational projects, involving multiple stakeholders, industries and phases over significant periods of time. This complexity must be recognised from the outset and appropriate leadership put in place.

Most importantly, while individual city systems will be delivered by many different organisations, the client ultimately owns the required city outcomes. It is therefore imperative that the client is educated and structured to achieve them.

There are multiple layers of complexity

A city is already a system-of-systems. But an equally complex ecosystem is responsible for designing and delivering it. Masterplanners, architects, engineers, infrastructure designers, contractors, technology vendors, systems integrators, operators and specialist solution providers will all contribute.

Each brings essential expertise, but they work across different disciplines, technical languages, commercial incentives and lifecycles. An architect may consider place and user experience. An engineer considers infrastructure performance. A technology provider considers systems and functionality. A contractor considers construction and programme. An operator considers service delivery and maintainability.

None of these perspectives is wrong, but unless the objectives and delivery schedule of each package are properly aligned, the overall city may fail to achieve the originally envisaged outcomes. Construction methodologies remain dominant, but systems-engineering approaches and integrated project teams offer a pathway to better outcomes.

The client owns the outcome

Individual suppliers can optimise their solutions, designers can satisfy their briefs, contractors can deliver their packages and systems integrators can integrate defined technologies, but none owns the overall city outcome. The client does.

This does not mean that the client must become an expert in every engineering discipline or emerging technology. It means that the client must build sufficient capability to define what it wants, understand critical relationships between different parts of the programme, make informed decisions and assure itself that the programme remains aligned with its intended outcomes.

The client must structure its team so that the delivery of each individual system aligns with the broader requirements of the integrated system-of-systems. Managing complexity cannot simply be delegated down the supply chain. It has to start at the top.

Visions are not requirements

Most major urban programmes start with ambition. A city may aspire to be safer, smarter, more sustainable or more connected, or to provide a seamless experience for citizens and visitors. While these are legitimate strategic objectives, they are not yet deliverable requirements.

A critical client responsibility is to maintain a clear chain from visions and strategies through to delivered outcomes:

STEP 1 - VISIONS & STRATEGIES
STEP 2 - CLIENT REQUIREMENTS
STEP 3 - DESIGNS & SPECIFICATIONS
STEP 4 - IMPLEMENTATION
STEP 5 - OPERATIONS & OUTCOMES

However, there is a tendency to jump from Step 1 directly to designs and specifications, or even to implementation. The importance of properly developing client requirements at Step 2 cannot be overstated.

As a programme moves towards implementation, its intentions need to become increasingly precise. What does “seamless” mean operationally? What measurable outcome constitutes “smart”? What information is required? Which systems need to interact? What infrastructure must be designed differently? Who will operate the resulting capability?

Unless these questions are answered, organisations will interpret the vision through their own professional or commercial lens, and fragmentation can begin long before technology is installed.

It is a programme, not a project

Delivering a smart city is not a single project. It is a programme of overlapping and interdependent projects, potentially involving different organisations, contracts, technologies, budgets, timescales and delivery lifecycles.

Physical infrastructure may be designed years before technologies are selected; individual systems progress at different speeds; and technology can evolve faster than the infrastructure intended to accommodate it.

Programme leadership therefore needs to manage not only individual projects, but also the interfaces between them. This requires systems thinking across the entire journey. The client’s project team must be multidisciplinary and include expertise in development, delivery, finance, technology and other relevant areas. This helps prevent silos and enables the system-of-systems to function as an integrated whole.

The educated client

This reinforces perhaps the most important requirement for successful Smart City delivery: the educated client.

An educated client is not an organisation filled with experts in every technology. It can clearly express the outcomes it expects, translate strategy into requirements and delivery frameworks, understand major interfaces and dependencies, establish clear accountability, intelligently challenge consultants and suppliers, and maintain oversight from strategy through design and implementation into operations.

Crucially, this capability has to begin with senior leadership. If senior leaders regard the Smart City as simply a technology initiative, the organisation beneath them is unlikely to establish the governance, capabilities and behaviours necessary to manage it as an integrated programme.

Leadership does not need to understand every technology. But leadership does need to understand the nature of the delivery challenge.

The key takeaway

Successful Smart City programmes will not simply be determined by which cities select the best technologies, but by which client organisations can define the outcomes they require and coordinate the complex ecosystem needed to deliver them.

That requires a shift in emphasis: from technology to outcomes, from individual projects to integrated programmes, and from supplier-led solutions to educated client leadership.

A Smart City is a system-of-systems. Delivering one requires systems thinking. And responsibility for that thinking has to start with the client.

Putting the Principles into Practice

Organisations planning or delivering complex Smart City programmes can engage Smart Cities Council Advisory for independent insight into client capability, delivery readiness, integration and implementation.

Contact the SCC Advisory team to discuss your programme and the practical steps required to move successfully from vision to delivery.