It is not a task that should be taken lightly.
Careful planning is not so much about making sure that all the details fit neatly in the spreadsheet; it is taking care that the right activities are initiated in a timely fashion to avoid
“situations of no choice”. Take the example of incidents of water contamination of the drinking water systems. Such incidents are much more prone to happen in systems that have not been properly maintained and cared for. This is a commitment that spans decades of hard work.
If you are thinking “well that might be, but we only have so and so amount of resources available”, then you should question, “Are we using the resources optimally?” and if the lack of resources is the main threat, then “How should
I spend my time to expand that pool”, the latter might actually be the most important task at hand, i.e. building the argument around the case, networking with key political decision makers, etc.
Strategic planning generally –for practical reasons – is planned to take place at a given frequency of time, e.g. annually or every two, three, four or five years. Not having prepared and maintained an infrastructure to feed this process during the periods of action (as opposed to the periods of planning) will render the planning process more difficult and more prone to error.
The process needs to be fed continually with data, information, analysis, inspiration, ideas, scenarios and imagination.
Figure 5.2: Project portfolios and feedback points to monitor progress.
Theme 1 Theme 2 Theme 3
Time, years/monThs
Feedback PoinTs acTiviTy a
acTiviTy b acTiviTy c
acTiviTy d
acTiviTy e acTiviTy F acTiviTy a
acTiviTy b acTiviTy c
acTiviTy d
acTiviTy e acTiviTy F acTiviTy a
acTiviTy b
acTiviTy c
acTiviTy d
154 Smart Water UtilitieS: Complexity made simple Deciding the end result of a strategic planning process may contribute to making the process much easier and less fuzzy. At any given time there are probably hundreds of issues that should be dealt with in the strategic planning process.
However in order to make the process clear and comprehensible it is a good idea to bundle the issues into key-themes.
For each key-theme describe in a few words the current situation and in a few words what it should be changed into. Based on these wishes for change, brainstorm on what activities need to be put into the plan. More suggestions mean more variety to choose from and hence a better chance of initiating the real effective activities.
Sometimes activities may be comprised of a combination of several proposals.
When a list of the most effective activities have been identified for each theme, the activities need to be transformed into clear projects with a clear project definition including description of the overall aim of the project, the level of ambition, the budget, the owner/steering group, name of the project manager and his or her team, resources available, etc. This definition frames the whole project and makes it possible to guide the project during its execution. As the
project manager and the team gets deeper into the project, the project definition may need to be adjusted. This should be done in collaboration with the steering group.
All the projects are then distributed over the plan period as shown. It is beneficial to have some clear points in time of feedback of the overall plan. The purpose is to steer the plan right as the organisation gets wiser on the effects of projects that have or are in the process of being executed.
At such feedback points the following questions should be answered:
6
6 How far are we from reaching our goal?
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6 Is the goal still valid or does it need to be updated?
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6 Are the projects moving the utility in the direction toward the goal?
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6 Can the plan be adjusted to help the goals be accomplished faster, better or with the use of fewer resources?
Based on the answer to these questions the plan can be adjusted.
In the end, it is all about choices and decisions.
What a Smart Water utility is basically doing is setting itself up for being prepared to answer central questions leading to informed, right-minded choices. If no information system is set up on the huge, complex and dynamic infrastructural systems of human water usage the decisions must be based on guess work and the success of the choices and decisions are accidental and non-consistent. This in turns leads to loss of resources on small as well as large scales.
Choosing instead the informed road forward it may be that the first decisions and control concepts are not perfectly optimal, however through the deliberate effort to analyse forth an understanding of the reasons behind the non-optimalities it will be possible to move closer and closer to optimality and even at times make large leaps ahead, where new relationships between processes are found or invented, leading to stronger bonds of collaboration, innovation and symbiosis. The ultimate aim of the whole process of improvement is to become a seamless and non-destructive collaboration with the surrounding environment.