(Co)Creating a Smart City Strategy

WISSENSARCHITEKTUR created the "Strategy Development" sub-project in the first phase of the Smart City Dresden model project (2022-2023). Based on a combination of methods from design thinking, workshops and participation formats, the team worked with the cooperation partners to develop a vision, topics and fields of action for strategic digitalisation.

Double diamond, agility, quadruple helix

For the stocktaking and development of Dresden's smart city strategy
strategy, a process was designed that combines elements of innovation and participation research as well as IT and software development.

• The double diamond from design thinking is a creativity process that leads through successive divergence and convergence phases in a targeted manner from problem definition to idea development and prototyping.
• The principle of agility in IT and software development describes a step-by-step, iterative approach in which requirements and solutions are flexibly adapted in dialogue between developers and customers in order to be able to react quickly to changes.
• The quadruple helix from innovation and participation research supports cooperation between four stakeholder groups - politics/administration, civil society, business and science - in order to make innovations economically, socially and ecologically sustainable.

Analysing the status quo in the "Smart City Radar"

For a holistic strategy that integrates synergies of existing smart city activities, a large number of guideline documents were evaluated (e.g. "Sustainable Development Goals" of the United Nations; Smart City Charter of the Federal Government; digitalisation strategy of the Free State of Saxony "Sachsen Digital", etc.).

The smart city-relevant projects and measures already implemented or currently running in Dresden were also analysed and integrated into the strategy process as valuable local knowledge and technology resources.

WISSENSARCHITEKTUR summarised the results in a self-developed "Smart City Radar" - a tool that can be used beyond the support of the strategy process in further project support for synergy development as well as for monitoring the implementation measures.

Participation process for the stakeholder groups

Important conceptual foundations of the strategy were developed through participation processes. A participatory needs and problem analysis, in which all stakeholder groups were involved, ensured the formulation, reflection and qualification of the future strategic vision in its empirical breadth and at the same time made it possible to identify potential risks and existing fears.

In specific guideline interviews concrete formats, anchor points and focal points were proposed for further strategy development and integration of the business divisions in smart city developments.

Workshops with experts

A central activity was the organisation of co-creative strategy workshops, which were generally open to all interested parties. In addition, experts with specific project references and expertise in the smart city context and digital urban development were specifically invited.

• Status quo workshop: Record of relevant topics, participants and projects 
• Vision workshop: Development of ideas and visions 
• Roadmapping workshop: Establishing initial anchor points for implementation and action plans
• Reflection workshops: Involvement of other stakeholders from business, science and administration

Online survey and "Future Tram"

With the help of specialised participation formats from WISSENSARCHITEKTUR, the results from the analysis and workshops were supplemented by public feedback.

Online survey: over 600 participants finally shared their opinions on the proposed visions, the methods and tools for strategy development, possible opportunities and risks and further developed the results of the vision workshops

Future tram: public participation events in trams where passengers were able to contribute their thoughts on Smart City Dresden "on the move"

The concrete strategy process with the results can be found here.