Enabling Hunter Water to lead the charge in Continuous Improvement and Innovation

THE CONTEXT

With a goal to set a clear direction for Continuous Improvement and Innovation (CI&I) within Hunter Water, our first step was to co-create a tailored, meaningful, fit-for-purpose measurement model that gave the leaders a clear understanding of current state and how this compares to what is possible.

This work paved the way for a roadmap to delivering a sustainable, agile, customer-driven CI&I strategy that aligns with Hunter Water’s overarching strategic intentions, goals and unique business model as a State Owned Corporation.

THE BRIEF

Whilst CI&I had been called out as a strategic pillar and cultural enabler of Hunter Water’s strategy, to bring this to life we firstly needed to clarify current state so that we could determine future state targets and show leadership what good looks like relevant to the work done at Hunter Water.

“Innovation assessments were available off the shelf however they were cookie cutter and only compared us to other water corporations. We wanted to understand the bigger picture relevant to how we work at Hunter Water so that we could jump forward with confidence and purpose”

-          Andy Olrich, Continuous Improvement & Innovation Lead, Hunter Water

Key questions we set out to answer included: what is the current maturity level of CI&I in Hunter Water? What does this mean in terms of current and future state ambitions? How can these insights sustainably unlock the potential of CI & I across the organisation?

HOW WE APPROACHED THIS WORK

We intentionally set out to understand the full innovation spectrum in Hunter Water from daily CI through to blue sky innovation work and co-designed a measurement model based around this.

·       Knowing diverse perspectives and experiences are the secret sauce to great outcomes, we conducted a series of 1:1 interviews with everyone from the Managing Director through to Field Workers and Digital Transformation people. These insights were then combined with an organisation wide survey which achieved a very high engagement rate of 42%.

·       The power was in the approach which included asking the right questions to get better alignment and focus, having a few good 'honesty sessions' between Claire and the project team to ensure focus on the right things and getting clear on outcomes.

OUTCOMES

·   Clear recommendations and a roadmap for the next 12 months and 3 years which balances ambition with action.

·       Visibility of current state with a relevant CI & I Maturity score that will help to propel Hunter Water forward.  

·   Great, real data and insights to help with decision making

·   CI&I now has a profile in the business and even stronger internal relationships  

·   Confidence from Hunter Water employees that change will be valuable for them and the work they do.

The Community of Practice has been reinvigorated with new purpose and direction.

Hunter Water is getting great interest and feedback from other utilities around this work and is seen as a progressive organisation in this CI&I space, most recently being asked to present a paper on this work at OzWater.