AWWA ACE58186

Taking a different approach, the Water System Operations Group (WSO) of the MetropolitanWater District of Southern California (Metropolitan) focused its reorganization on systeminterdependencies and accountability. Moving away from traditional top-down redesign efforts,WSO created a multi-level, cross-functional "Design Team" comprising line employees fromvaried geographic and functional areas, supervisors and managers. The Team was charged bythe group executive (Group Manager) to develop a new organizational structure, formulate achange strategy for implementation, and design a method to "roll out" the changes to staff.Several months after implementation, the Design Team reassembled to evaluate how theirconcepts and intentions had fared in a real-life operating environment. Beyond their designefforts, which were working pretty well, the team looked at how the revised organization wouldfare within the larger structure of the district. Returning to the analysis and evaluationtechniques that had resulted in their development of a successful structure for the group, theteam developed a "prescription" for the future stability and success of WSO's efforts and passedalong their recommendation to the Group Manager. The core of the recommendation was toupdate, align, and make more rigorous the performance management system for the entireGroup of nearly 1,000 employees, to optimize their work efforts within the new organizationalstructure.Currently in implementation, this new performance management system breaks away from the"one size fits all" concept of performance management methodologies and tools. Throughinternal analysis, using internal staff expertise, an approach has been specifically tailored toalign with WSO's functions, style, and organizational structure, as well as the culture of thebroader organization in which it must conduct its operations. The result is a multi-facetedapproach which meshes elements of strategy mapping and a balanced scorecard, applied tostrategic planning, group work planning, and performance measurement.This paper highlights the benefits, challenges and techniques being applied to transform atradition-based utility management system from reliance on "tried and true", historicprocedures - to a nimble, focused system capable of aligning day-to-day work with specificstrategies and objectives, and committed to installing systems to measure and improveoperational outcomes of the entire group. Includes 8 references, figures.

Product Details

Edition:

Vol. - No.

Published:

06/15/2003

Number of Pages:

7

File Size:

1 file , 510 KB