Organizational Development for Knowledge Management at Water ...

xxviii | Organizational Development for Knowledge Management at Water Utilities
and users happy with final outcome. Specific responses included: increase customer service while
improving business practices, improves work flows and is user friendly, provides better information
faster, provides the benefits that were targeted and then becomes a part of the daily routine for
most employees. Other “increases” were: increased productivity, increased competitiveness, and
increased customer satisfaction. One learner responded: Paying an employee to maintain a license
higher than required.
All utilities have core planning processes that are essential to effective planning and performance.
These plans are critical to effective and efficient utility operations because they set up
procedures and processes that when implemented create the activities and relationships that drive
utility performance. In the Project 4003 survey, responders were largely senior leaders and managers.
Yet out of the 207 surveys returned, the responses to each of the six core planning processes
ranged from 177 to 202. Thus for each of the core processes there were 5–30 responders who chose
not to enter a value for that core process, indicting either no judgment or an unfamiliarity with the
core processes they were asked to assess. In the order of those processes more readily assessed,
the planning processes are: Capital improvement planning, operational planning, human resource
development, strategic business planning, information technology master planning and life cycle
planning. This would indicate, for example, a higher level of familiarity and opinion on capital
improvement planning than life cycle planning. Yet capital improvement planning is directly correlated
to life cycle planning. In an uncertain and changing economic and political environment—
where new requirements and issues emerge without adequate resources to quickly and effectively
respond to those requirements and issues—long-term planning must often take a second seat to
short-term needs. While this juxtaposing occurs in a large number of organizations, the aging
infrastructure faced by a large number of drinking water utilities is rapidly bringing long-term into
the sphere of short-term urgency. In other words, funding needs that could previously be delayed
can no longer be delayed.
Further, the data indicates that information technology master planning has the second
lowest response rating with a narrow standard deviation. This indicates close agreement by the
responders. These indicators can now be combined with the responses to the question: “The following
statements relate to the information systems in your organization” to build a deeper understanding
of the perception of the role of information technology (and by extension information
technology master planning) and the mission of the utility. ITD is the acronym for Information
Technology Department.
• 88.6% of 193 responders agree that systems are mission critical to the organization.
• 62.6% of 190 responders agree that ITD is heavily involved with and understands the
business mission.
• 54% of 189 responders agree that ITD is a solution provider for business problems.
• 45.9% of 185 responders agree that ITD is not helpful in solving business problems.
The last two bullets represent the same question looked at from two different directions. While
there is a larger perception (62.6%) that ITD is involved with and understands the business mission,
there is a lower perception (54%) of its effectiveness in handling business problems. From
this response, it is clear that while the value of information technology is recognized as mission
critical (88.6%), there is still some work to do in order for information technology to strongly support
the business mission. Considering all these responses collectively, it appears that either
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