Design management refers to the ongoing processes of planning and making business decisions and strategies that encourage innovation and the creation of effectively design products that focus on sustainability and performance. Design management involves the use of special skills in creative process to solve business problems via successful management of projects, people, procedures and processes at the back the everyday designing of products, services and needs from our experiences, environment and culture. Smart cities refer to cities whose investments in social and human capital, transport and ICT communication infrastructure lead to improved quality of life and sustainable economic development coupled with prudent management of natural resources achieved via participatory action and engagement. Several ideas from design management can be use to transform current and upcoming cities into smart cities. This therefore implies that cities are real time systems and hence the need for design management ideas to ensure that the cities are run as such. Adding to the use of established ICT that was initially used to improve performance at the departmental level including utilities, E-government and community services and mobility, smart city technologies aims at creating more informed citizens and more efficient systems. Design management aims at pushing the concept of smart cities from the initial departmental solutions to a wide city approach through strategic planning. Design management aims at creating smart cities that will result in economic development and job creation, promote resource efficiency and environmental sustainability, and provide more space to live and work, support communities and overall efficient running of the cities. Potential challenges to the thriving of smart cities include existing government structures that deny smart services an opportunity to excel, the technology set to be used should have the capacity to evolve citing the rapid global technological advancement and finally, the citizens have to see the value of smart services and have access to them in order to participate in the success of the desired changes.
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