Data Management Planning: Creating the Foundations of Digital Maturity

INTRODUCTION Clean Water Services (CWS) is a water resources management utility that serves more than 600,000 customers in Washington County, Oregon. As with many utilities, CWS generates a large amount of data from a range of sources but struggles to integrate those data sources. The current data systems create inefficiencies in accomplishing routine data-driven decisioning making tasks. To address these challenges, CWS initiated a data management planning project in March 2024 with the goal to improve data access for evaluation and decision making. The project was created to outline a vision and implementation plan for a resilient and secure data management system. This project also sets the foundation for the sustainable adoption of advancements such as artificial intelligence and digital twins.

The project is taking a phased approach. Phase 1 defined the current digital limitations and future data needs for works groups from treatment and conveyance operations and engineering. The most prevalent digital limitations were difficulty in data visualization, lack of data quality transparency and disorganized file management. Phase 1 identified several key initiatives to move those work groups to an improved future state. With Phase 2, the program is starting to build the foundations of digital maturity by establishing a centralized data storage system and data governance frameworks. It will also create a program management system to prioritize initiatives from Phase 1 and expand or adapt initiatives into the future.

PHASE 1 The objective of Phase 1 was to evaluate staff challenges around data usage, data storage, and data security - then to develop a vision and plan to unify the large volumes of utility data from a variety of sources. Phase 1 concentrated on identifying and documenting the current and future requirements of stakeholders in operations and engineering. The first step was to gain a better understanding of the existing workflows and data assets. Staff feedback was gathered through a series of in-person meetings and workshops. Workshops to gather workflows and challenges covered the following topic areas:

• Managing instrumentation
• Pump station data collection and use
• Capital project delivery
• Regulatory reporting
• Treatment process decision making
• Treatment facility asset management
• Biosolids and reuse
• Operator data entry and operations data use
• Collection system capital planning
• Treatment facility capital planning
• Conveyance system operations

The most prevalent issues identified included difficulty in data visualization, lack of data quality transparency and disorganized file management.

A visioning workshop was used to align stakeholders in a collective vision. The workshop allowed CWS staff to discuss their ideal state and prioritize opportunities to help reach that state. Based on CWS stakeholder feedback, Hazen proposed several initiatives to address the various data management challenges identified. Stakeholders voted to rank these opportunities during the visioning workshop, allowing CWS to collaboratively prioritize opportunities in the context of common challenges.

Hazen used a Value and Effort framework (Figure 1) to systematically assess the business value of each initiative against the level of effort required. Projects were sorted by effort using T-Shirt sizing estimation (S, M, L, XL), and by value using an assigned priority from 1-4 based on which quadrant they fell into (quick wins, phased projects, fill-in-tasks or time sinks). Using this framework, a roadmap of high priority, high impact projects was developed. Tables 1-4 summarize the high priority projects sorted into four categories: data analytics, data management, document management, governance/IT planning.

PHASE 2 The following initiatives will be addressed in Phase 2, which kicks off in January 2026:
(1) Initial development of a central data repository.
(2) Establishment of data governance standards to maintain the quality and traceability of data.
(3) Development of a program management system to prioritize the initiatives identified in Phase 1. The goal is to develop a structured system to track progress, measure value and adjust initiatives and priorities over time as needs and resources change.
(4) Selection of the future visualization, analytics and regulatory reporting software for treatment data. The HachWIMS platform is the current software used for all three purposes. It is central to operational process control for wastewater treatment and handles several major regulatory reporting tasks. The software evaluation will include definition of the software requirements, review of alternative vendor offerings and comparison of vendor versus custom-developed options.

Along with this implementation comes a need for focused change management support. Based on the Prosci ADKAR approach (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement), we will incorporate elements of leadership engagement, organizational strategy, and prioritized focus areas.

CONCULSION CWS is developing the foundational elements of digital maturity and using change management principles to make the program a success. This presentation will summarize the approach to developing a road map for digital transformation, discuss implementation of the Phase 2 initiatives, and provide an overview of the strategies used to facilitate user communication and adoption.