Carter, J.

Mr. Carter is a Vice President and is Strategy & Innovation Services Lead for Arcadis North America. He has worked globally with water utilities studying emerging issues and developing best practices in fields such as utility planning, operational optimization, and utility management. Previously as Arcadis' Corporate Innovation Leader, he led innovation investments across water, infrastructure, and environmental business lines as well as the intellectual property portfolio. He also served as the Principal Investigator for The Water Research Foundation's Project 4907 – Leading Water and Wastewater Utility Innovation.

Titles from this speaker

Key Tactics for Executive Innovation Champions

Abstract

Today's water sector operates in a complex and dynamic environment. While water utilities have been successful for generations, utility leaders have begun exploring new approaches to water services that will help them navigate these challenges. In a global survey, over 90 percent of utility executives believed that innovation was critical to the future of their organization, however only half believed that they were effectively leveraging it (WRF 4642). As a result, some utilities have formalized innovation management as a business function, including the development of innovation leadership roles that are responsible for accelerating the exploration and adoption of new services, processes, and technologies available to the water sector. While the role of innovation leader is a crucial ingredient for success, utilities must also have an executive innovation champion that works in collaboration with the innovation leader. Their role is to embed innovation management as an effective business function by providing direction and ensuring innovation remains an organizational priority. When these two roles work effectively together the benefits of innovation can reach the entire organization as well as customers. Based on a series of utility executive interviews and workshops, conducted as part of The Water Research Foundation's (WRF) Project 4907 Leading Water and Wastewater Innovation, a coalition of 76 utility partners from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Brazil and Australia as well as AWWA, AMWA, WEF, WSAA and NACWA found five fundamental tactics that are practiced by successful executive innovation champions to frame and sustain innovation at their organizations. In addition, two specific opportunities for collaboration with their innovation leader that are pivotal to the success of the innovation program were identified. Below you will find a summary of these five critical tactics along with utility examples and a summary of the critical action areas for collaboration. These tactics include: - Defining organizational need and expectations for innovation. Clarity is critical. Less than 40% of utilities have described the urgency or vision for innovation. Additionally, only 30% have identified key challenges or opportunities that need to be explored (WRF 4642). Without alignment with organizational priorities, innovation activities are unsustainable and fail to support a culture of exploration. Leadership must frame the priorities and expectations for innovation investments. Establishing strategic alignment between innovation program priorities, organization philosophy and critical success factors can be done by explicitly addressing innovation in the Strategic Business Plan (SBP). At Louisville MSD, innovation is linked to one of the critical success factors (CSF) in their SBP ( Blueprint 2025). This CSF states, 'Realize operational efficiencies and revenue generation through strategic partnerships and innovation.' Their organizational performance measures and transformational initiatives are tied to each critical success factor. They use these measures throughout the organization to determine organizational performance incentives and support staff evaluations. - Providing resources for exploration, development, and adoption of new concepts. An innovation program without resources will fail to achieve expectations. Only 44% of utilities have established a process or dedicated resources to support innovation (WRF 4642). The top resource needs for innovation include funding for idea development, staff time to explore concepts, physical space for experimentation, and tools for evaluation and cross functional collaboration. Executive champions should focus on identifying available resources to support these processes. At Central Arkansas Water, they found their GIS department was the most requested partner to engage when exploring a new idea. Therefore, they knew it was vital to increase the resources in the GIS department to ensure they were available to others for idea development and deployment. - Establishing measures that are aligned with expectations. Measures are just part of the story. According to WRF 4642, only 35% of utilities have established innovation-related performance measures. However, there is a wide array of performance measures used to evaluate the impact of innovation programs. These measures can include program impact indicators that assess organizational efficiency, quality, resiliency as well as revenue. While the innovation leader should be responsible for maintaining leading and lagging measures that communicate the impact of the program, the executive champion should work to ensure that quantitative and qualitative measures selected align with organizational philosophy, priorities, and desired narrative. At Urban Utilities, they started without metrics and focused on improving the culture. As their program matured, they began to focus on the return on investment for their entire innovation portfolio. Currently, they are experiencing a 10% return including both capital and operating expenditures. They also measure employee engagement in the innovation program. 40 percent of their employees are engaged in the program either through idea generation or participating in idea development sessions. - Rewarding and recognizing innovation activities - successes and failures. Reinforcement builds culture and culture is the key to sustainable innovation. Only 17% of utilities reported innovation-specific reward and recognition measures. Innovation programs track progress and recognize the contributions and the employees that generated them. Recognition can range from a simple 'thank you' to innovation activities recognized in a formal appraisal process. The executive innovation champion should work to provide a diverse range of measures to reward and recognize as well as foster collaboration with the responsible parties for communications and human resources. At the Louisville Water Company (LWC), they make it a point for their staff to be aware of LWC successes so they can be advocates and share it with their family, friends, and the community. These stories can be shared not only through employees but also through annual reports, education programs, social media, and involving the community in innovation projects. - Demonstrating continued support by example and participation. An open-door policy is not enough. The Executive Champion is the chief advocate and plays a key role in nurturing and supporting organizational behavior by participating in it. There are simple steps an executive innovation champion can perform to demonstrate a commitment to innovation including submitting an idea, participating as a judge or mentor for idea submitters, or hosting innovation meetings. At the City of Atlanta's Department of Watershed Management, they hired a Chief of Innovation to ensure time was dedicated to engaging the entire organization and developing an innovation strategy that established goals and actions aligned with the overall organizational strategy. Additionally, two specific opportunities for collaboration with the innovation leader that are pivotal to the success of the innovation program include: 1: Creating a meaningful innovation strategy. To help manage the tensions created by change, an organization can create an innovation strategy. An innovation strategy is a succinct guiding document that provides direction, pathways, and progress tracking. Strategy development provides a simple and collaborative process to align program leadership, process and culture including commitments and roles for the executive champion and innovation leader. Executive champions should ensure that the strategy uses the language of the organization and aligns with utility priorities. 2: Launching and sustaining an innovation program. Once the innovation strategy is developed, executive champions should help find a sustainable pace for the program by working with the innovation leader to align launch and management activities based on available resources, organizational priorities, and cultural change-readiness. Executive champions should also commit to regular progress and redirect meetings that may be held frequently following the launch of the program until the program has become established. Water utilities are adopting innovation management as a core practice to maximize the benefit of new technologies, services and process emerging across the water industry. A key to success is the engagement of the executive champion. This session will unpack the tactics summarized above to equip executive champions to work effectively with their innovation leaders as well as effectively leverage innovation management practices to build agile and fit for future organizations.

This paper was presented at the WEF/AWWA Utility Management Conference, February 21-24, 2022.

SpeakerCarter, J.

Presentation time

15:30:00

16:00:00

Session time

15:30:00

17:00:00

SessionUtility Innovation: Leadership and Evolution

Session number11

Session locationHyatt Regency Grand Cypress, Orlando, Florida

TopicLeadership, Organizational Change Management, Organizational Culture, Program Management

Author(s)

J. CarterJ. BrunnerE. MeansK. TysonC. ChapmanJ. Cochran

Author(s)J. Carter 1; J. Brunner 2; E. Means 3; K. Tyson 4; C. Chapman 5; J. Cochran 6

Author affiliation(s)UMC Speaker 1; UMC Speaker 2; Means Consulting 3; WSSC Water 4; Urban Utilities 5; Birmingham Water Works 6

SourceProceedings of the Water Environment Federation

Document typeConference Paper

PublisherWater Environment Federation

Print publication date Feb 2022

DOI10.2175/193864718825158265

Volume / Issue

Content sourceUtility Management Conference

Word count7

Using Uncertainty to Drive Investments for Organizational Resiliency

Abstract

Utilities around the world have navigated the challenges of the global pandemic by working collaboratively and taking new approaches to delivering on their organizational mission. Some are seeking ways to shift from near-term agility to long-term resiliency and sustainability. Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission's (WSSC Water) Strategy and Innovation Office (SIO) worked with their cross-departmental New Normal Taskforce (Taskforce) to think beyond the current challenges to examine emerging challenges and opportunities. Using scenario planning and virtual forums, the SIO and Taskforce identified six key business opportunity areas for investment that build from pandemic-driven insights and will position WSSC Water for success across a variety of potential futures. This effort demonstrated WSSC Water's ability to leverage crisis-based momentum and internal partnerships to move beyond near-term shocks to build resiliency for the future. WSSC Water is currently among the largest water and wastewater utilities in the nation, with a network of nearly 6,000 miles of water pipeline and over 5,600 miles of sewer pipeline. Their service areas span nearly 1,000 square miles in Maryland's Prince George's and Montgomery counties. They serve 1.8 million residents through approximately 475,000 customer accounts. Guided by their vision to be the world-class water utility 'where excellent products and services are always on tap' and commitment to ethical, sustainable, and financially responsible service led WSSC Water to form the Strategy and Innovation Office (SIO). The SIO is charged with accelerating organizational performance through strategic planning and execution, knowledge management, and organizational effectiveness. The SIO is made up of the Office of Innovation and Research, Strategic Performance Office, and Enterprise Risk Team. The Office of Innovation and Research is responsible for finding and accelerating new technologies and processes that reduce operating expenses, increase safe work practices, improve sustainability and create new revenue opportunities. The Strategic Performance Office leads strategic business planning, data analysis and process improvements. Enterprise Risk spearheads business risk assessments and mitigation planning to minimize challenges to implementation of WSSC Water's strategic business plan. The New Normal Taskforce was formed as a cross-departmental team to identify and address challenges associated with the global pandemic and operational challenges. The Taskforce included the SIO as well as representatives from human resources, asset management, diversity and inclusion, police and homeland security, finance, production and utility services departments. Throughout the pandemic, the Taskforce reviewed working conditions, business practices, and technologies to identify concepts to permanently adopt into post-pandemic operations. Arcadis was retained to facilitate a series of virtual sessions to engage the SIO and Taskforce in examining the emerging opportunities and challenges post-pandemic recovery plus ten years. This longer view was used to move beyond the current context and challenges of the pandemic to identify and to better position WSSC Water for long-term success. A key tactic in this exercise was scenario planning. Scenario planning is a method of using uncertainty in plan development and decision making. By using this tactic, leaders can make decisions or adopt strategies that play out well across several possible futures resulting in more resilient business plans. The WSSC Water-Arcadis team held a series of virtual workshops built on the key steps to scenario planning. First, the team developed framing questions that identified the most pressing challenges or questions facing WSSC Water. These questions included complex long-term topics (e.g., digital transformation, affordability, workforce development, community understanding) that do not have established or discrete solutions. The framing questions were used throughout the workshops to keep discussion anchored in the practical challenges of the utility. Second, the team developed and evaluated key national and regional trends that are outside the control of the organization but impact their decision-making. This analysis involved deep dives into nine trend areas including advanced asset management, alternative energy technologies, climate change, policy and governance, contaminants of emerging concern, customer expectations, intelligent water, revenue and pricing, as well as workforce development and upskilling. From these trends, the team selected two key themes to develop a scenario compass and four alternative future scenarios for use in the idea development sessions. Using a world cafÃ© format and collaborative virtual platform, the team examined each alternative future scenario and generated ideas that leveraged existing resources to address each of the framing questions. Discussions included approaches to improve infrastructure management, operational efficiency, business continuity, workforce development, customer experience, and digital transformation. From these discussions, idea themes were identified and consolidated into potential innovation investment areas. Over 600 individual ideas were contributed through the virtual sessions which were consolidated into 19 primary idea themes. These themes were later grouped into six research and innovation investment areas including customer experience, infrastructure, stakeholders, operations, sustainability, and data & digital. Within each of these areas, the specific ideas were sequenced across three priority horizons: H1 — enhancing existing core functions, H2 — adopting new functions from partner or adjacent industry, and H3 — novel function or future aspirations. These horizon maps provide a roadmap for general exploration by the SIO. Lastly, using the six investment areas, the team developed tailored roadmaps for innovation investments regarding each framing question. The SIO will use the roadmaps to develop a strategy to assist WSSC Water leadership with investment in near-term innovation with long-term impact and reduction of risk posed by uncertainty. They will use the investment areas to assess and prioritize new ideas and technologies as well as guide decisions regarding resource allocations. The horizons within each investment area help set a cadence for needs assessments and functional requirements for external partnerships. Further, the collaboratively developed focus areas identify cross-departmental support and resources needed to implement these strategies. Lastly, the exercise provides SIO with a number of tactics that will support review of trends and alternative futures. As trends change, the updated roadmaps will provide a framework to guide revisions to investment areas or sequencing to improve organizational resiliency. In this presentation, our team will walk through WSSC Water's experience and outcomes. Participants will learn the fundamentals for applying planning tactics to leverage uncertainty and lessons learned during the pandemic to identify investment areas that will support long-term organizational resiliency.

This paper was presented at the WEF/AWWA Utility Management Conference, February 21-24, 2022.

SpeakerCarter, J.

Presentation time

11:30:00

12:00:00

Session time

10:30:00

12:00:00

SessionStrategic Planning

Session number3

Session locationHyatt Regency Grand Cypress, Orlando, Florida

TopicContinuous Improvement, Diversity and Inclusion, Program Management, Resiliency, Strategic Plan, Sustainability And Social Responsibility, Utility Management