Rotterdam completed the testing phase

By Loris Gherra

Community, Participative problem solving, Customer journey, Learning styles and Communication are the keywords with which the City of Rotterdam has confronted itself to start the Innovato-R project.

This “Good practice adaptation” was reported by Jochem Cooiman, Strategic Advisor on Innovation of the City of Rotterdam and founder member of the innovation Network Rotterdam (iNR).

“In Rotterdam we have adapted the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) concept to our needs, creating our MVP using less 'Lean start-up' than 'Design Thinking'”.

In 2018, Rotterdam started with an Urban Local Group (ULG) which included about 30 people civil servants from a wide variety of departments all keen on innovation and process improvement.

“In our opinion the ULG mainly works as a calibration meeting – highlighted project manager Cooiman – . We discuss our common goals and think up of imagine the steps that need to be taken in both the content side of the project as well as in the project parts of Innovato-R. Obviously the ULG evaluates the tests of the MVP and describes the requirements”.

Rotterdam tested the MVP 0 in September 2019 and made a first overview of which functional requirements should be part of MVP 1. The design of MVP 1 was the next step they organized in November 2019. The MVP 1 was developed in January 2020.

Cooiman: “At the beginning, we were indecisive on whether to build upon an existing platform (MVP 0) or to build an entire new platform fromscratch. We have decided the latter. Our local support group came up with a list of requirements to be added to the MVP 0. Some examples of those requirements included a mobile-first-perspective and the addition of innovative techniques like data analytics, news feeds and live word clouds. In the 5th Transnational Meeting in Cluj-Napoca, in February 2020, we were able to present our MVP 1. Built on mobile-first principle, the platform allowed users to add ideas and issues and to connect with each other. Conclusion was that there are still plenty of possible improvements from with testing was required. In Cluj-Napoca we mentioned to introduce the testing phase to all of our innovation network members. This was done just before a lecture for our network, in which 300 members took part. We introduced them to the platform and invited them to become testers. We finished the testing phase in March. We got  feedback from around 15 people. We will use this feedbacks to build MVP 2, together with the requirements previously designed by our local support group”.

The positive and less positive experience for Rotterdam in the Innovato-R project are summarized in "the good and the bad".

The good

• Our local support group is involved;
• They know about the process of building a MVP;
• They just started testing MVP1;
• The delay gave us time to realize that the new MVP should be “mobile first”;
• Rotterdam has been invited by the City of Turin to discuss public innovation;
• We have finished recording over 4 Vox pops;
• The number of Diaries count 6.

The bad

• Due to technical delays the expenses made in 2019 haven't followed the plan;
• The administrative burden look slightly more effort than expected;
• We are still unsure on how to upscale the digital innovation platform;
• We are still not sure on how to connect the digital innovation platform with other existing online ecosystems.

The Rotterdam team has showed that a MVP is a (small) complete solution which delivers a finished product: “However, it is indeed not finished yet. It still implies solutions to be evaluated, modified and improved. More people will test the MVP’s. The goals of the platform and the status of the MVP needs to be ‘100% clear’. Our further wish is to improve a mobile app/version. Even if not yet in form of an android or iOS app, will be a shortcut with a similar feel”, concluded Cooiman.