Monitoring your Smart City initiatives: What to measure and why?

Since every Smart City project is ideally designed with a view to improve the quality of life on your territory as well as its sustainability (economic, social and environmental), it is important that, once implemented, you measure its impact and effectiveness: Have you achieved the objectives previously set? Does your project satisfy the target audience?

Considering that each Smart City is unique, there is therefore no single formula in terms of monitoring. Therefore, how do you determine and produce relevant indicators?

Through our latest video in our series "How to develop your Smart City strategy", we look at several approaches to help you in your reflection:

• Monitoring and evaluation of results
• Evaluation of the satisfaction and involvement level of the citizens
• Adjusting and modifying your action plan

An approach too often ignored

Currently, the trend shows that the attention of cities and municipalities is mainly focused on the development of Smart City projects rather than on the implementation of a monitoring system and/or a dedicated strategy. However, this is a series of essential steps for the success of the projects. Indeed, without a clear vision made up of well-defined objectives and indicators, the Monitoring process cannot be carried out effectively.

Moreover, this evaluation phase can not only contribute to the legitimacy of your Smart Cities projects and strategies, but also help to ensure their sustainable performance, as regular Monitoring will allow you to readjust and improve your action plan.

A few points of attention to conclude

After going through this series of video capsules, you now have in mind the 4 key steps to consider when developing your Smart City strategy.

However, don't forget that your municipality/territory is unique, and that it is based on an ecosystem that has its own specificities and is constantly evolving! There is therefore no single, universal method to engage in a Smart City process, as it is built and aligned with the specificities of your territory and its ecosystem.

Finally, keep in mind that the proposed approach must be considered as an iterative (and non-linear) process, i.e. all the steps, as well as the entire process, can be repeated one or more times and/or approached in a different order, in order to best meet the needs you encounter.

To deepen the subject