Finding and costing solutions

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Identifying potential solutions

Smart solutions are being deployed across Australia and the world. Take time to learn about technical solutions that are already available. You can find out about what is happening in other places, by exploring the resources below.

Smart Places resource: Technical Guidance – Developing Places

The Technical Guidance: Developing Places outlines the proposed treatments for the application of digital infrastructure to different place types. It includes general treatments for greenfield and brownfield/infill, as well as:

  • public open spaces
  • data-intensive industrial areas
  • central business and commercial precincts.

It should be read in conjunction with the relevant standards and legislative requirements.

Engaging the market

Engaging with the market can help you:

  • identify and validate potential solutions
  • understand practical challenges of deployment
  • find solutions that make the best use of new and emerging technology
  • find opportunities for partnerships to co-develop solutions
  • develop your procurement approach and specifications.

At a basic level, market engagement involves:

  • briefing market participants with your problem and outcome statements
  • inviting them to submit proposals for solutions that may be appropriate.

You should be aware of your organisation's procurement policies and seek appropriate advice before engaging the market.

Market engagement methods

Market sounding

During market sounding, you can understand the market's views on potential solutions. You can do this by:

  • researching and analysing the whole market
  • meeting selected providers for discussion.

Market sounding does not require a commitment to progress with procurement.

However, you will need to ensure the market sounding process is transparent and that participants are treated equally. This will ensure any future procurements are not compromised.

Hackathon or challenge events

To run a hackathon or challenge event, you will need to publish an outcome or challenge statement(s).

These are typically in the form of a question starting with 'How might we…' to keep solutions ideation broad and focused on problems that need solving.

You then invite participants from across industry, government, and academia to come together to respond to the question(s).

Hackathons or challenge events can help you to uncover novel solutions to difficult problems. These ideas may not be well formed and may need further development before they are ready to be delivered.

Explore how we are finding new ways to get leading-edge technology solutions for smart places through the Smart City Innovation Challenges.

Piloting new ideas

Piloting is a great way to test new solutions before committing to full rollout. Pilots can help you:

  • understand if a solution will work for your organisation without a large investment
  • adapt business practices to accommodate the new solution without service interruption
  • fine-tune a solution or delivery plan, before a more comprehensive rollout takes place
  • establish and quantify benefits of a new solution and generate buy-in from internal and external stakeholders.

Pilot projects are most useful when you want to:

  • ready your organisation and community for change
  • check that the solution can integrate with existing systems and software
  • test new partnership and ownership models.

Regulatory sandboxes

A regulatory sandbox is a special exemption from normal legal requirements. Sandboxes can only be set up by regulatory authorities such as governmental agencies responsible for overseeing specific industries.

Sandboxes are usually:

  • put in place to inform potential regulatory change
  • only allowed for trials or pilots with limited scope
  • focused on testing and proving impacts and benefits, under changed regulatory conditions
  • supported by risk management plans or safety management systems.

Setting up and using sandboxes or seeking changes to regulation to accommodate your solutions can take a lot of time.

Assess whether potential regulatory barriers can be addressed through other levers before pursuing a sandbox.

Establishing costs and benefits

From researching and engaging the market, you should have some cost estimates for the solutions you are planning to invest in.

When setting out cost estimates, be sure to identify any additional costs beyond the initial delivery. This might include:

  • ongoing data costs associated with hardware and sensors
  • data management costs associated with processing and storage
  • costs related to data analysis, visualisation and sharing of data
  • resourcing requirements
  • education and training to help people use technology.

Developing an asset management plan will help quantify operational and ongoing costs. Learn more about asset management planning.

You also have information on the expected benefits your chosen solutions should deliver. These can be quantified and assigned a value.

By weighing the costs of the solution against the potential benefits, you can give decision-makers an indication of whether the initiative is worth investing in. This is called a cost-benefit analysis.

Related resources

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