How To Turn Your Utility Into An Ideas Factory
It’s no secret that water utilities face uncertain times.
Buried infrastructure is in more desperate need of replacement than ever. Regulatory requirements have become increasingly burdensome. The threat of climate change looms over resilience planning.
At such critical times, utilities have little choice but to innovate. They look toward industry thought leaders, technology providers, and regulatory agencies for groundbreaking solutions to their everyday problems. But what if they should be looking closer to home? What if innovation could come out of the utilities themselves?
Fostering Innovation
The Water Research Foundation (WRF) and Water Environment & Reuse Foundation (WE&RF) have collaborated on a new report, “Fostering Innovation Within Water Utilities,” with advice that can be applied by utilities to enable a culture of innovation, fostering new ideas from within. The goal is to have utilities encourage creativity from staff and find ways to implement their new ideas.
“Utility structure and processes are built for reliability and repeatability, which can breed a culture averse to trying new and relatively untried ideas,” said Mike Dirks, a regional liaison for the WRF. “The WRF and our partners hope that water utilities will use the innovation framework from the guidance manual to assess their innovation environment both internally and with external partnerships, which can foster new ideas and allow implementation of new approaches that will transform their organizations and enhance their ability to meet future challenges.”
In addition to their own researchers and outside consultants, the WRF and WE&RF relied on over 45 utility co-funders to compile the report, including the Birmingham Water Works Board, which took the lead. They held workshops around the country, in Canada, and Australia. The researchers conducted surveys of utility labor and formed a committee of utility leaders from California American Water, Central Arkansas Water, and the City of Houston, which ultimately produced a report that demonstrates the importance of fostering utility-lead ideas.
“The committee leaders were instrumental advocates and suggested that the final body of work needed to show utility leaders and commissioners why innovation framework approaches were important for their organizations as well as demonstrating enough guidance for utility staff on how to move an innovation framework forward with the resources and support from leaders,” said Dirks.
The essential product of the report is a three-step plan for launching an innovation program at any given water utility:
- The first phase as outlined would be to assess the current environment within the utility. Using a report framework, staff can identify areas of strength, the resources available, organizational silos, and the best opportunities for the type of growth that could push forward program development.
- In the second phase of the plan, utilities will set expectations, identify and develop the resources they will need, figure out where to focus innovation, create communication channels, and articular success metrics.
- In the third and final phase, utilities will launch the activities that will ultimate allow staff to refine programs, resources, and communications as necessary for a full rollout of the innovation program.
Providing Value
Of course, utilities all around the world would love to be the answer to their own problems and fostering innovation programs would have certainly occurred to them before the launch of this report. As Dirks identified, the problem is that the regulation-heavy and budget-scarce world of water utilities creates an environment that discourages risk-taking from within.
In order to convince a utility that implementing an innovation program as outlined in the report, they will have to see that the cost of doing so, both in finances and risk, is worth the value that these innovations will ultimately bring. In the report’s parlance, this comes down to “resources,” or available funds, and “cultural inertia,” or risk aversion.
“The research survey results agreed with literature reviews on this subject that resources and cultural inertia were the top two internal inhibitors for business innovation in the water sector,” said Dirks.
Dirks is confident that these concerns are addressed in the report and the advice it offers. Overcoming typical concerns is just a matter of applying the first step in its plan: assessing your current capabilities.
“Using the examples and tools from the authors of the publication can help to create an effective utility business innovation framework,” Dirks said. “Through assessing your current capability for various disciplines of innovation, utilities can also start bridging the common internal inhibitors for organizational development and growth.”
Overcoming Barriers
Beyond identifying typical roadblocks and tailoring a plan that would overcome them, the report contains advice specific to these typical roadblocks.
“The innovation framework approach helps to tackle internal resources needed to build an innovation program that can help to address examples of external business innovation inhibitors like persistent infrastructure [repair and rehabilitation], controlling rates, and regulatory oversight limitations,” Dirks said.
The researchers identified several key actions that utilities can take to spur an innovation program despite typical obstacles.
“The top external catalysts of innovation were appropriately managing technology advancements, engaging effectively in peer networks, and using research programs from external partners,” Dirks said.
With this plan, utilities may be able to look within for the answers to their problems.