Using a Compass to Find Your Direction: Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department's Employee-Led Five-Year Strategic Plan

Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department (WASD) is the largest public water and sewer utility in the Southeastern United States. Serving a community with a population of more than 2.8 residents and thousands of visitors within a geographic footprint of more than 2,000 square miles, WASD provides a life-sustaining resource and acts as an economic engine to a significant portion of South Florida. Despite its size, complexity, and essentiality, WASD has not conducted a comprehensive strategic plan since 2008. Further, the department has experienced over a decade of constant leadership changes, leaving the workforce suffering from low morale. With over 2,900 employees managing a highly intricate system that must be ready for today's demand and tomorrow's uncertainties, WASD needed a direction shift. As customer needs and habits change within a rapidly evolving social, environmental, and economic landscape, WASD needed to build a vision and roadmap for its department that could navigate even the roughest waters. Water and sewer utilities must evolve in concert with incredibly dynamic conditions while simultaneously be grounded to reflect the culture and passion of their workforces and customers. As strategic plans often lay out big changes for organizations, great care must be taken to build a plan that harnesses the voice of the employees, customers, and other invested stakeholders while ensuring tangible, affordable, resilient, and sustainable solutions are identified that will propel the organization forward. Striking this critical balance is key. Moonshot Missions and WASD leaders will provide an overview of their partnership in developing the WAVE: Water, A Vision For Excellence, WASD's recently completed 5-Year Strategic Plan, tactics that were used to ensure the plan reflected not only the vision of the County elected body but field and operations personnel that are at the helm of delivering life-sustaining resources, and the necessary next steps to ensure the plan is operationalized efficiently, effectively and affordably. Moonshot and WASD presenters will cover their three distinct phases of strategic planning: Discover, Design, and Deliver and highlight the inventive 'WAVE Compass', the clear, accessible, and highly practical framework for the plan's content. Speakers will share the tactics used to engage over 6500 invested stakeholders in the process, yielding a truly employee and partner-led plan. Lastly, speakers will share valuable insight on lessons learned, and the framework for the WAVE's Implementation and Action Plan, consisting of comprehensive change management, communications, and project management strategies meant to embed the WAVE into the everyday culture of the department and, ultimately, ensure a long-lasting and recyclable tool for the department's long-term planning efforts.