Making a Strategic Plan is the Easy Part … Actually Implementing It … Well, That's a Whole Different Ball Game! -- SWBNO's Strategy for Strategic Plan Implementation

The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans (SWBNO) is an organization employing more than 1,300 high-performing individuals who work together to produce drinking water, clean wastewater, and move stormwater for nearly 400,000 residents and millions of visitors each year. SWBNO started a transformational journey just a few years ago by undertaking a comprehensive strategic planning effort where stakeholders met, discussed, and identified key focus areas, goals, and tactics to elevate their utility services. The six focus areas from the plan include: Ensuring Financial Stability Advancing Technology Modernization Addressing Workforce Development and Enrichment Elevating Customer Service and Stakeholder Engagement Improving Infrastructure Resiliency and Reliability Driving Organizational and Operational Improvement But wisely, SWBNO realized that identifying, defining, and creating a strategic roadmap was only the beginning. In order to affect change within their organization and community, SWBNO needed to be committed to the implementation and execution of the plan. They understood that the integration of the plan into the culture of the organization was the only way to show progress and ultimately success. SWBNO staff have begun that effort by developing annual work plans against their 5-year strategic plan with an intentionality of tracking progress of the identified tactics and organizational/operational performance toward the goals of the six focus areas. The utility is currently using a performance cloud-based software package called Ellio to measure both the progress of tactical level implementation as well as their performance around a number of KPIs (key performance indicators) and inform executive staff and the Board on overall effectiveness of implementing the plan. To date, there have been some hurdles in executing the plan, which staff turnover and data availability, but overall, with each passing month, quarter, and year, the commitment to performance tracking improves and momentum is building. The Session Leaders will reveal progress to-date, will demonstrate the performance evaluation software, and will 'get real' about the challenges faced in introducing culture shaping initiatives. SWBNO has a long road to 'success,' but has already learned several lessons along the way to share with their peers.