David Graham, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, City of San Diego
When we think of smart cities, we think about things like technology, IoT, pilots, and scaling. All of those things are important, of course, but in San Diego, we have come to realize that the ability to achieve transformative change depends on how you set up your organization and nurture the people inside it. Here are some of our thoughts on how to build a stronger environment for innovation.
4 Organizational Models
Innovation within the city is typically organized in one of four ways:
- Centered around the mayor and the mayor’s office.
- Embedded in an organization where a CTO or CIO leads innovation efforts.
- Innovation through consultancies/outsourcing.
- A decentralized model without a lot of internal organization.
In San Diego, we use the decentralized model. We don’t work in the mayor’s office, but we do work across many different departments in the city government. Is this the ‘right’ way to do innovation? No, there is no one right way, and all of the above methods can work. However, the main point is that you must understand what your model is and be intentional about choosing a model that will work for your city.
Getting Your Bureaucracy On Board
If you work specifically in the smart cities space, you likely see yourself as a future-thinking innovator who is pushing hard for positive changes in your city. But the city government bureaucracy is made up of many people who are doing the ground work each day, and they might not feel the same way. While we try hard to engage the public, to convince them and help them understand the value our smart city efforts, we do not apply the same effort or strategy to the people in our own bureaucracy. This is something that can severely block digital transformation.
In every city government, there are colleagues who are ‘in the stone age’ and just don’t get it. It is our job to convince them that these projects make sense and that the goal of becoming a smarter city is worthwhile. There are evangelists like us in every city who are hungry for innovation, but that is not enough. To achieve digital transformation, we must start with organizational transformation—engaging people at all levels of the bureaucracy and convincing those on the ground to get hungry for innovation too.
3 Impediments to Digital Transformation (and How to Push Through)
In our experience, there are three things in the bureaucracy that can slow progress toward digital transformation.
1. Fear
Fear of things that are new or fear of what might happen if you try different ideas can stall innovation within the bureaucracy. If this is happening, we recommend the ‘training wheels’ method. Start by replicating something. Do something that is safe and do it over and over again. You know what works, so try to tweak it and change it in order to explore it in a different manner. Eventually, you will feel safe to move more boldly into innovation. Once you learn how to ride the bike, you can take the training wheels off.
2. Funding
Lack of funds can also make transformation difficult. But the ‘secret’ is that cities always have money, even when they’re broke. Funding decisions just come down to prioritization. To make smart city projects a higher priority, try getting other departments within the city government involved. We have already mentioned the importance of getting the bureaucracy on board. If you do that—and encourage them to think about how they connect with your program and how it relates to what they’re doing—your projects and goals will become a higher priority to the city.
3. Failure
Failing can discourage people from continuing innovation efforts, and because of this, we seek to empower those in our organization through education. We created a management academy and an operational excellence academy that has thus far trained 200 people who are now skilled in pushing innovation into their specific departments and areas of expertise. Our programs use lean six sigma methodology and conclude with a graduation project that requires them to think of a real-world innovation project that we can implement in the city.
There are many people who are truly passionate about digital transformation and are driving innovation in the area of smart cities. However, you are not going to create the transformational change you are looking for unless you are thoughtful about the model you start with, get everyone in the bureaucracy involved, and push past the things that are blocking innovation.