Beyond Scope And Schedule: Why Water Utilities Need Transformational Consulting Partners

By Ashwin Dhanasekar and Kirk Olds

The Watershed Moment: Complex Pressures For Utilities

Water utilities today are navigating an unprecedented confluence of challenges — aging infrastructure, climate volatility, chronic funding shortfalls, evolving regulatory demands, and a rapidly changing workforce. Unlike isolated events, these pressures converge to form a complex network of interdependencies that threaten not just asset reliability but the very integrity of business operations and organizational health. The consequences manifest as interruptions in service, escalating maintenance costs, regulatory compliance hurdles, and higher stress on staff.

These operating constraints are felt in daily decisions: How can utilities prioritize capital when asset failures loom? What happens to legacy knowledge when experienced staff retire? How does risk aversion slow down adoption of breakthrough digital tools? Ultimately, the compounding nature of these issues — if not addressed as a system — can erode public trust, financial stability, and workforce morale.

From Fragmented Solutions To Systemic Transformation

Conventional consulting engagements are often structured around responding to discrete problems: a technical fix, a compliance solution, or a tech upgrade within a narrow project scope. While this approach can resolve immediate needs, it reinforces siloed thinking and can perpetuate incrementalism. The real-world impacts are visible: delayed adaptation, high turnover, staff burnout, patchwork technology implementations, and a missed opportunity to foster a culture of learning and innovation.

Transformation demands a shift to systems thinking — seeing the utility as an organic whole where business units, IT, field teams, and leadership operate as an interconnected ecosystem. This means moving beyond compliance and short-term metrics toward building resilient systems, empowering people, and aligning strategic intent with operational execution.

Integrating Best Practices: Healthy Organizations And Systems Thinking

Healthy organizations — inside and outside the utility sector — excel by nurturing agile cultures, championing continuous learning, and embedding systems thinking into everyday routines. These best practices include:

• Embracing cross-functional collaboration to break down silos and drive holistic decision-making.
• Investing in proactive professional development and knowledge transfer programs so staff are equipped for emerging challenges.
• Using data in decision-making, not just for reporting but for forecasting, innovation, and adaptive resilience.

Systems thinking is key to connecting dots: it frames utility challenges and opportunities as part of a dynamic system, ensuring both immediate and long-term issues are addressed in an integrated manner. This prevents reactionary “whack-a-mole” solutions and fosters sustained high performance at every level.

A Catchy Framework For Action: The “ACT” Model

Rather than a checklist, utilities need a flexible but robust framework. The “ACT” model offers utility leaders and consultants a memorable, actionable path forward:

• Align organizational purpose, values, strategy, and operations. Ensure every staff member understands the ‘why’ behind each initiative and how their work supports broader resilience.
• Cultivate a thriving culture of innovation and partnership. Invest in staff empowerment, encourage knowledge sharing, and invite collaboration — both internally and with external partners.
• Transform with intentional, ongoing adaptation. Use strategic planning as a living process — monitor disruptions, assess performance, and recalibrate plans to promote a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.

Linking Transformation To Strategic Planning: Driving Innovation And A Culture Of Improvement

Strategic planning is not a one-and-done process. It is the backbone of organizational resilience and adaptability, integrating lessons from healthy organizations and systems thinking by:

• Providing a disciplined-yet-flexible approach to surfacing risks, opportunities, and innovation pathways.
• Embedding a culture of learning and accountability through ongoing measurement, reflection, and iteration.
• Linking daily actions, team goals, and enterprise outcomes so that progress fuels further innovation — even in times of uncertainty and disruption.

Intentional and continual strategic planning encourages staff engagement, supports business continuity, and positions utilities to not just weather disruption but to thrive, adapt, and lead transformation in their communities.

Conclusion: Catalyzing Sustainable Utility Transformation

Water utilities and their consulting partners stand at a crossroad. Incremental change is no longer sufficient; only intentional, systemic transformation will sustain reliable operations and empower staff through disruption. By grounding transformation in systems thinking, healthy organizational best practices, and a practical action framework, utilities can build future-ready operations, resilient workforces, and a culture of perpetual improvement. Strategic planning is the throughline — ensuring that every leap forward in adaptation, innovation, and service delivery becomes part of an upward spiral toward enduring excellence.

Ashwin Dhanasekar is a Principal with Brown and Caldwell. He serves as an External Funding Leader in BC’s Research & Innovation Group, and as the Operations Leader in BC’s Digital Solutions Group. He has over 15 years of experience working in various roles in the water sector, specializing in strategy and performance, research and innovation, and digital water systems. He has degrees in Chemical and Environmental Engineering and is the co-founder of Ajax Analytics, an environmental monitoring services startup based out of Colorado. Ashwin is also an Adjunct Professor at Colorado State University.

Kirk Olds is Utility Performance National Practice Leader at Brown and Caldwell. He brings over 30 years of water industry experience across engineering, technical, project management, business, and leadership roles as both a consultant and utility manager. Leveraging this breadth of expertise, Kirk excels at connecting with stakeholders and transforming diverse perspectives into actionable strategies and a clear vision for organizational growth. His deep knowledge of water and wastewater consulting and utility management enables him to help organizations achieve business outcomes aligned with their mission through tailored services and solutions.