IDC Government Insights has released its Business Strategy: IDC Government Insights Smart City Maturity Model – Assessment and Action on the Path to Maturity, designed to help cities assess their current situation and determine critical capabilities needed to develop a smart city.
Based on independent research, IDC Government Insights’ Smart City Maturity Model provides a framework of stages, critical measures, outcomes, and actions required for organisations to effectively advance along the successive stages of competency toward data and event-driven decision-making.
City leaders can also use the maturity model as a tool to develop a common language, improve intra- and inter-group collaboration in defining and executing a smart city strategy, and promote and encourage the use of emerging technologies and smart city solutions.
The maturity model will enable a city to:
* Begin to assess its smart city current competency and maturity;
* Define short and long-term goals and plan for improvements;
* Prioritise technology, partnership, staffing, and other related investment decisions; and
* Uncover maturity gaps among departments, business units or between functional and IT groups.
“Many cities are unsure of how to begin addressing the decisions that need to be made in technology, staffing, and process to deploy Smart Cities capabilities pervasively across the city.
“The plethora of technology choices and range of technologies and management skills required make it difficult to prioritise project resource allocations,” says Ruthbea Yesner Clarke, research director: smart city strategies at IDC Government Insights.
Smart city solutions integrate information and operation within and between city systems, and Smart Cities leverage this technology to create a new platform for service delivery and sustainable economic development.
Navigating the transformative change required to become a smart city is a long-term and complex process. To work toward this goal, cities will progress through common phases as they create a smart city system. The IDC Government Insights Smart City model identifies and describes five stages to maturity and key attributes of each phase:
* Ad hoc – this stage is the traditional government modus operandi with ad hoc project, department-based planning and discrete Smart projects.
* Opportunistic – in this stage, opportunistic project deployments result in proactive collaboration within and between departments. Key stakeholders start to align around developing strategy, common language is developed, and barriers to adoption are identified.
* Repeatable – in this stage, recurring projects, events and processes are identified for integration. Formal committees document defined strategy, processes, and technology investment needs with stakeholder buy-in. Sustainable funding models and governance issues become a focus.
* Managed – formal systems for work/data flows and leveraging technology assets are in place and standards emerge. Performance management based on outcomes shift culture, budgets, IT investment, governance structure to a broader city context.
* Optimised – a sustainable, city-wide platform is in place. Agile strategy, IT, and governance allows for autonomy within an integrated system of systems and continuous improvements. Superior outcomes deliver differentiation.
Today there is sporadic adoption of smart city solutions across cities, with only a handful of cities worldwide actively in the opportunistic or repeatable implementation stage. Most cities are focussed on researching and evaluating use cases and vendor capabilities along with defining their vision of a smart city and identifying barriers to adoption.
According to the report, at this very early stage in smart city development, it is important to use the model to develop clarity of vision, common language, and a strategic roadmap with key leaders and innovators in the city ecosystem.
City leaders can also use the maturity model as a tool to develop a common language, improve intra- and inter-group collaboration in defining and executing a smart city strategy, and promote and encourage the use of emerging technologies and smart city solutions.
The maturity model will enable a city to:
* Begin to assess its smart city current competency and maturity;
* Define short and long-term goals and plan for improvements;
* Prioritise technology, partnership, staffing, and other related investment decisions; and
* Uncover maturity gaps among departments, business units or between functional and IT groups.
“Many cities are unsure of how to begin addressing the decisions that need to be made in technology, staffing, and process to deploy Smart Cities capabilities pervasively across the city.
“The plethora of technology choices and range of technologies and management skills required make it difficult to prioritise project resource allocations,” says Ruthbea Yesner Clarke, research director: smart city strategies at IDC Government Insights.
Smart city solutions integrate information and operation within and between city systems, and Smart Cities leverage this technology to create a new platform for service delivery and sustainable economic development.
Navigating the transformative change required to become a smart city is a long-term and complex process. To work toward this goal, cities will progress through common phases as they create a smart city system. The IDC Government Insights Smart City model identifies and describes five stages to maturity and key attributes of each phase:
* Ad hoc – this stage is the traditional government modus operandi with ad hoc project, department-based planning and discrete Smart projects.
* Opportunistic – in this stage, opportunistic project deployments result in proactive collaboration within and between departments. Key stakeholders start to align around developing strategy, common language is developed, and barriers to adoption are identified.
* Repeatable – in this stage, recurring projects, events and processes are identified for integration. Formal committees document defined strategy, processes, and technology investment needs with stakeholder buy-in. Sustainable funding models and governance issues become a focus.
* Managed – formal systems for work/data flows and leveraging technology assets are in place and standards emerge. Performance management based on outcomes shift culture, budgets, IT investment, governance structure to a broader city context.
* Optimised – a sustainable, city-wide platform is in place. Agile strategy, IT, and governance allows for autonomy within an integrated system of systems and continuous improvements. Superior outcomes deliver differentiation.
Today there is sporadic adoption of smart city solutions across cities, with only a handful of cities worldwide actively in the opportunistic or repeatable implementation stage. Most cities are focussed on researching and evaluating use cases and vendor capabilities along with defining their vision of a smart city and identifying barriers to adoption.
According to the report, at this very early stage in smart city development, it is important to use the model to develop clarity of vision, common language, and a strategic roadmap with key leaders and innovators in the city ecosystem.