Assessment Brief
For this assignment, you have to build a Project Management Consultancy Report based on the Smart City OS case study.
THE SMART CITY OS CASE STUDY
Hull’s journey to becoming a programmable city
Here’s how Hull is racing to become the UK’s first smart city.
For a city to become smart, it takes a combination of technologies and disciplines, seamlessly integrated, with an understanding of how a huge number of customers – the population of your city – with interact with it. In the UK, several cities are racing to become the nation’s smartest city, from London to Manchester to the country’s current leader, Bristol. Against those larger cities, Hull might seem like the underdog, but it’s been making considerable
in-roads over the past 12 months or so. In May last year, it was awarded £55,000 for smart solutions to reduce traffic congestion. Later in the year, it started a more ambitious project – to create a purpose-built, smart operating system (OS) for the city.
The project, Smart City OS is being delivered by Hull City Council, technology company Connexin and Cisco. Connexin has been working with cities such as Newcastle Upon Tyne to deliver smart city technologies, impacting on everything from lighting, mobility, security and waste.
“Developing Hull as a Smart City will give us the opportunity to work with public and private sector partners to deliver real benefits to communities, businesses and visitors to Hull,” says Councillor Daren Hale, Deputy Leader of Hull City Council.
The objectives
Hull has been quietly upgrading itself over the past five years. Its small size – with a population of around 260,000 – has allowed it to make changes at a comparatively quick pace. This has allowed Hull to become the UK’s first full-fibre city – it has the fastest broadband of anywhere in the UK, according to broadband choices.
Hull City Council had already worked with Connexin on a long-range wide area network (LoRaWAN), allowing for better business connectivity and the facility of Internet of Things devices. Creating its own OS seemed the next logical step.
The aim of the project is to increase and enhance data sharing and decision-making, allowing the Council to deliver more effective services across the board, from traffic management to health and social care.
“The system pulls together information that currently sits within separate council computer systems to enable city-wide management of the city’s public assets in real-time using state-ofthe-art technology, says Hale. “Residents will receive better information to make choices about transport, traffic and parking. But this will be just the beginning of what is possible.”
Over the course of the project, it will drive new demand for a digitally skilled workforce, which will then boost Hull’s economy. The Council is investing in skills for its young people as a result.
The methodology
The OS uses Connexin tech, built on Cisco Kinetic for Cities platform. It will pull together 12 separate council IT systems. Each system will process data from a variety of sources, including city-wide sensors and Internet of Things devices. This data can be used to help facilitate various services. Connexin, with its experience in implementing smart city solutions, is taking a five-step
process to the installation.
The first step is infrastructure: having the right level of area-wide connectivity to be able to deliver smart city services. This is a combination of high-speed fibre networks and LoRaWAN networks. Hull had a head start in this area – local telecoms company KCOM had invested £85m in the city’s full-fibre network, and Connexin’s LoRaWAN was already in place.
Second is the installation of sensors across the city, to collect real-time data. This is where the 12 systems come in. Connexin’s Smart Bins is one of them. The others include the Siemens Stratos platform for traffic management; the Bartec Auto ID system for managing waste; and the Datek streetlighting system.
The Vaisala IceCast program will help to predict the weather and plan road maintenance. The Teletrac Navman provides GPS technology, and the Citilogik system will monitor people movement. Pitney Bowes is providing asset-management software for street furniture.
Elsewhere, Defra’s air-quality database, the Environment Agency’s flood monitoring platform, Hydro-Logic flooding alert sensors and the Astun iShare GIS web mapping portal – provide the rest of the data.
Stage three is the implementation of the platform and bringing all of the systems onto the OS. This is expected to take around a year. This allows for stage four – gathering insights. Stage five is about determining outcomes based on those insights.
“Our platform will enable Hull to become a “programmable city” and move from outdated siloed service driven technologies to a central platform to improve service delivery, reduce costs and to make the most of new technologies such as IoT, AI and machine learning algorithms,” says
Furqan Alamgir, Founder and CEO of Connexin.
THE SMART CITY OS CONSULTANCY REPORT
In the role of a Project Consultant you are required to develop a project report for the Smart City OS project by leveraging the techniques and concepts you have covered in the module. The report has to include the following tasks:
Task 1 – The Project Manager
Critically discuss what skills the project manager of the Smart City OS project needs to develop to be effective and reflect on possible actions the project manager of the Smart City OS project should take to develop those skills. Support your arguments with academic literature and references to other similar real projects.
Task 2 – Problem Solving & Decision Making
Identify relevant stakeholders and create a stakeholder influence map for the Smart City OS project and discuss why these are the most critical stakeholders emerging from your analysis.
Afterwards, by leveraging the academic literature and similar real projects, critically discuss how you engage the stakeholders you have identified with the Smart City OS project.
Task 3 – The Project Triangle
Critically discuss the importance of the various project triangle parameters that will need to be managed by the Smart City OS project manager over the course of the project, and how they may inter-relate to each other. Discuss the impact of possible changes to this project. Support your arguments with academic literature and references to other similar real projects.
Task 4 – Managing Finances
Provide advice to the project manager on what resources may be required for this project and what could be an effective cost estimation technique for the Smart City OS project and explain why. Support your arguments with academic literature and references to other similar real projects.
Task 5 – Risk Management within the Project
Develop a risk analysis by constructing a risk register for the Smart City OS project. You should identify at least ten risks that the Smart City OS project should be aware of by using the appropriate categories (e.g., environmental, operational, financial, strategic, reputational, compliance, etc…). For this analysis, an appropriate risk register format should be used.
Task 6 – Conflicts and Negotiation
Identify at least six conflicts that may arise when running the Smart City OS project and their sources. Once you have identified those potential conflicts, critically discuss which actions can be taken by the project manager to resolve them and suggest appropriate conflict management and/or negotiation strategies to address these. Support your arguments with academic
literature and references to other similar real projects.
Task 7 – Teamwork
Critically discuss what the project manager can do to build a highly successful team for the Smart City OS project. In particular focus on the importance of how a diverse team can increase project performance., Critically reflect on what actions the project manager can take to build a diverse team for the Smart City OS project, and what are some of the challenges of working in diverse teams.
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