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Choose one of the three pathways below depending on when a new mobility innovation is arriving in your city.

Read the scenario and goals, and then explore the overview of your strategy. Remember the proposed strategy is based on our research on best practices for community engagement

I want to build capacity in my community to be an informed and empowered partner for urban mobility and other innovations.

The mayor wants your city to be a leader in ‘community-first mobility innovation,’ empowering all residents to participate in a meaningful way in exploring new ideas.

Your city wants to open up to meaningful innovations by building capacity in historically-disadvantaged communities to plan and shape their mobility future.

By capacity, we mean that communities can organize, articulate and prioritize their needs as well as truly understand the potential of innovations in their context.

By participation, we mean that the community is empowered to learn, be part of decisions and hold operators accountable for outcomes.

Your goals for this assignment are:

  • Assess the capabilities of communities for community organizing and participation, and identify needs for support
  • Develop an offering of grants, technical assistance and training resources to support community organizing efforts
  • Help communities learn about relevant innovations and participate in plans and decisions that affect their priorities

Your strategy outline is:

  1. Define an action plan
  2. Engage residents and community groups to develop ‘community-first’ offerings
  3. Help communities prioritize needs and aspirations, and empower them to monitor outcomes
  4. Gather information about relevant innovations and opportunities to feed into co-creation activities
  5. Help communities take actionable ideas forward and empower them to be part of decisions

We have prepared a text version of this market entry journey to help you customize your plan.

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1. Plan ‘Community-First’

Capture the expectations for the process, set your goals and develop an action plan and strategy.

  1. Align around a high-level, community-first approach
    1. Get a clear picture of everyone’s expectations
    2. Set your goals for your role
    3. Break down your goals
  2. Draft a short action plan
    1. Confirm city goals
    2. Outline action plan
    3. Request resources
    4. Internal memo with action plan
  3. ‘Community-first’ strategy
    1. Define statement of purpose
    2. Define community-first values
    3. Develop methods
    4. ‘Community-first’ strategy
2. Engagement Experience

Even short-term engagements can deliver five core engagement experiences.

  1. I trust

    1. Take time to build trust

    2. Develop your offering in consultation with organizations and groups that are trusted by communities

    3. Recruit & train organizers from target communities

    4. Be a patient listener — on any subject

    5. Be present and share your purpose honestly

    6. Learn more about building trust
  2. I know

    1. Help people describe their needs, desires and priorities

    2. Community organizing should determine needs, problems and aspirations

    3. Engage the community to prioritize these needs

    4. Report progress on priority outcomes

    5. Learn more about establishing community priorities
  3. I understand

    1. Explain innovations in engaging and nuanced ways

    2. Be creative in how you let people experience new ideas

    3. Explain the innovation and the bigger systems into which it fits

    4. Be upfront about tricky and controversial issues

    5. Give grants to allow residents to take charge

    6. Learn more about communicating innovations
  4. I can contribute

    1. Understand that people have different ways of contributing

    2. Plan events and formats that work for your target groups

    3. Avoid activities that are biased toward the ‘usual suspects’

    4. Use creative means like experience prototyping

    5. Learn more about co-creation methods
  5. I am empowered

    1. Demonstrate that voices lead to results

    2. Make the contribution count: build something, vote on a decision, commit to a tangible follow-up action

    3. Commit to being held accountable

    4. Learn more about empowerment methods

Our engagement experience is derived from research and expert practitioner interviews carried out in 2019. We strived to capture the most important steps to empower residents and help them make informed contributions. Read more in Knowledge Resources.

3. Market Response

Mobilize the power of the market to find innovative ideas to help your community achieve their priorities.
Learn about both technology as well as the economic and workforce dynamics and see how the innovation integrates with other measures (context).

  1. Market research solutions that fit priorities
    1. Combine a variety of methods and sources.
    2. Discover alternatives solutions for each need.
    3. Identify all possible operators and business models.
    4. Market research
  2. Operator engagement to collect details
    1. Allow operators to share additional info
    2. Provide a level playing field by issuing RFIs (or create a permanent open call)
    3. Provide extra support to local entrepreneurs
    4. Operator / market engagement
  3. Invite operators to bid / pitch
    1. Make good use of research and community input to develop a formal procedure
    2. Issue tender, RFx, application for permits
    3. Outcome-based procurement
  4. Get community involved in thinking about magic carpets and alternative ideas
    1. Find creative ways to share market opportunities
    2. Provide access to full information and evaluations
    3. Communicating innovation
    4. Experience prototypes
4. Evaluate, Pilot, Plan

Invest in developing a smart and inclusive methodology that will help you learn through the last stages. Try not to discriminate against small business and consider small budgets to fund pilots or other steps to test claims.

  1. Design a smart evaluation method
    1. Avoid criteria that discriminate against small business or innovations
    2. Plan to compare very different solutions
    3. Create room for pilots or other measures
    4. Designing the evaluation framework
  2. Involve the community in evaluation
    1. Include the community in evaluation panels
    2. Be transparent about procedure and choices
    3. Provide feedback to operators
    4. Use showcases or demos to provide opportunities to learn more
    5. Involving the community in evaluation
  3. Use pilots as appropriate
    1. Budget to help teams pilot or demo
    2. Use pilots as part of process to test claims
    3. Design pilots for success, not failure!
    4. Piloting
  4. Choose the best deployment path
    1. Use your learnings to determine the best contracting / operations model
      • Permitting
      • Procurement
      • Regulation
    2. Designing the ownership model
5. Agile Oversight

Don’t overlook contract management! A lot can be gained by working with an operator who is truly engaged in continuous improvements.
Try to build flexibility into contracts so you can adapt what you measure to ensure you get the best outcomes for your residents.

  1. Develop a purposeful contract
    1. Design the contract to build a great relationship with the operator
    2. Keep flexibility to help learning
    3. Plan for success... but also have a plan for failure
    4. e-Adept in Stockholm, Sweden
  2. Deploy the new mobility service!
    1. Plan roll-out carefully
    2. Consider learning milestones
    3. Integrated Mobility Hubs in Los Angeles, California
  3. Evaluate impact / KPIs
    1. Budget for measurement into your contract
    2. Determine the interval for reporting (e.g., monthly)
    3. Measure meaningful outcomes, not service outputs
    4. Consider qualitative measure
    5. Learning, data & measurement
  4. Work with operators on improvements
    1. Discuss metrics on a regular basis with operators
    2. Exchange critical reflections about what you measure
    3. Implement changes and evaluate their impact
    4. (Agile) contract management