Effective Utility Management Practices

The Water Research Foundation (WEF) recently published Recommended Approach for Conducting a Self-Assessment Using the Effective Utility Management Benchmarking Tool (link).  The practices and tools embedded in the document are built around the ten attributes of effectively managed water sector utilities that was previously developed by a collection of organizations:

1. Product Quality
2. Customer satisfaction
3. Employee and Leadership Development
4. Operational Optimization
5. Financial Viability
6. Infrastructure Stability
7. Operational Resilience
8. Community Sustainability
9. Water Resource Adequacy
10. Stakeholder Understanding and Support

The WEF plan recommends an approach that utilities can adapt to meet their specific needs:

1. Form a benchmarking team and develop an initial plan of action.
2. Select the Effective Utility Management attributes to assess.
3. Select associated practice areas and performance measures to assess.
4. Revise plan of action (if needed).
5. Conduct self-assessment benchmarking for selected attributes, practice areas, and performance areas.
6. Evaluate results and identify methods to narrow priority gaps.
7. Develop follow-up plans.

Several observations - the problems that utilities face are multi-disciplinary that requires broad systems thinking.  Planning, engineering, construction, compliance, and finance will need to be at the assessment and benchmarking table.  The second is the long term nature of the process.  You really need to be thinking continuous - the need for constant self evaluation and improvement.  The third is the need for quality questions in the assessment and evaluation portion of the exercise - the quality of the questions is a reflection on the quality of the thinking and thus the quality of the outcomes (e.g., How close is the utility to meeting its target performance levels overall and for the highest priority attributes?).

Seeing the words "resilience" and "sustainability" focus in the attribute list is important.  The New York Times pointed this out yesterday in Severe Drought Has U.S. West Fearing the Worst -

"With no sign of rain, 17 rural communities [in California] providing water to 40,000 people are in danger of running out within 60 to 120 days.  State officials said that the number was likely to rise in the months ahead after the State Water Project, the main municipal water distribution system, announced on Friday that it did not have enough water to supplement the dwindling supplies of local agencies that provide water to an additional 25 million people.  It is [the] first time the project has turned off its spigot in its 54-year history."

Abstract of the WEF benchmarking research:

"This project identified best practices and metrics used by water utilities to support each of the ten attributes of effectively managed water utilities; developed and documented a framework and methodology for utilities to evaluate the attributes; and created an Excel-based tool that they can use to conduct a self-assessment for internal performance benchmarking. For each of the ten attributes, the tool helps a utility identify areas where it can undertake activity to improve its performance. Within each practice area, at least one performance measure is defined so that utilities can track their progress in achieving performance goals in areas they define as high priority. The tool allows utilities to track both the level of performance achieved and the degree of implementation within their organizations for each performance measure. The Excel tool and User Guide are available under Project Resources/Web Tools. Guidance on conducting a self-assessment is available as a PDF for download as 4313a. Additionally, a final report will be posted in February."