Data Strategy Municipality of Delft

Challenge

The municipality of Delft wanted to genuinely embed data-driven practice in the organisation, not as a vision exercise but as actionable reality. The challenge: municipal data strategies typically stall at maturity models and roadmaps without a concrete connection to the data itself. In Delft, that connection was already there, because Delft is also home to the Gemeentelijk Gegevensmodel. The question was therefore not whether a model should exist, but how the strategy logically connects to it, and how to prevent strategy and model development from narrowly missing each other.

What we built

Across two programmes, in 2023 and 2026, the data strategy for the municipality of Delft was developed as an executable whole of vision, governance, data management principles, and concrete action lines. The GGM serves as the semantic backbone: where the strategy names building block A, that building block is already defined in the data model. The roadmap explicitly states which components go into operational management when, who owns them, and how decision-making proceeds. The second programme in 2026 builds on the results of the first round and translates them into new priorities such as AI adoption and data sharing with chain partners.

Key design decisions

• Strategy and model as one track. A data strategy written in isolation from the data model is guaranteed to misalign at implementation. By running both tracks in parallel, the strategy becomes testable and the model gains organisational support.
• Feasibility over completeness. Three action lines that are picked up this year are worth more than ten that disappear into an appendix. This was made explicit in the strategy and deliberately linked to ownership.
• Continuity across administrative terms. The fact that a follow-up programme exists in 2026 confirms that the first strategy was not designed as a one-off vision document but as an ongoing instrument.

Results and adoption

The work has resulted in a data strategy that genuinely steers data development in Delft, and that is cited nationally as an example because, unlike many strategies, it concretely feeds into the data model, the architecture, and governance. The follow-up programme in 2026 consolidates this approach and extends it to new themes.