Key Tactics for Executive Innovation Champions

Today's water sector operates in a complex and dynamic environment. While water utilities have been successful for generations, utility leaders have begun exploring new approaches to water services that will help them navigate these challenges. In a global survey, over 90 percent of utility executives believed that innovation was critical to the future of their organization, however only half believed that they were effectively leveraging it (WRF 4642). As a result, some utilities have formalized innovation management as a business function, including the development of innovation leadership roles that are responsible for accelerating the exploration and adoption of new services, processes, and technologies available to the water sector. While the role of innovation leader is a crucial ingredient for success, utilities must also have an executive innovation champion that works in collaboration with the innovation leader. Their role is to embed innovation management as an effective business function by providing direction and ensuring innovation remains an organizational priority. When these two roles work effectively together the benefits of innovation can reach the entire organization as well as customers. Based on a series of utility executive interviews and workshops, conducted as part of The Water Research Foundation's (WRF) Project 4907 Leading Water and Wastewater Innovation, a coalition of 76 utility partners from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Brazil and Australia as well as AWWA, AMWA, WEF, WSAA and NACWA found five fundamental tactics that are practiced by successful executive innovation champions to frame and sustain innovation at their organizations. In addition, two specific opportunities for collaboration with their innovation leader that are pivotal to the success of the innovation program were identified. Below you will find a summary of these five critical tactics along with utility examples and a summary of the critical action areas for collaboration. These tactics include: - Defining organizational need and expectations for innovation. Clarity is critical. Less than 40% of utilities have described the urgency or vision for innovation. Additionally, only 30% have identified key challenges or opportunities that need to be explored (WRF 4642). Without alignment with organizational priorities, innovation activities are unsustainable and fail to support a culture of exploration. Leadership must frame the priorities and expectations for innovation investments. Establishing strategic alignment between innovation program priorities, organization philosophy and critical success factors can be done by explicitly addressing innovation in the Strategic Business Plan (SBP). At Louisville MSD, innovation is linked to one of the critical success factors (CSF) in their SBP ( Blueprint 2025). This CSF states, 'Realize operational efficiencies and revenue generation through strategic partnerships and innovation.' Their organizational performance measures and transformational initiatives are tied to each critical success factor. They use these measures throughout the organization to determine organizational performance incentives and support staff evaluations. - Providing resources for exploration, development, and adoption of new concepts. An innovation program without resources will fail to achieve expectations. Only 44% of utilities have established a process or dedicated resources to support innovation (WRF 4642). The top resource needs for innovation include funding for idea development, staff time to explore concepts, physical space for experimentation, and tools for evaluation and cross functional collaboration. Executive champions should focus on identifying available resources to support these processes. At Central Arkansas Water, they found their GIS department was the most requested partner to engage when exploring a new idea. Therefore, they knew it was vital to increase the resources in the GIS department to ensure they were available to others for idea development and deployment. - Establishing measures that are aligned with expectations. Measures are just part of the story. According to WRF 4642, only 35% of utilities have established innovation-related performance measures. However, there is a wide array of performance measures used to evaluate the impact of innovation programs. These measures can include program impact indicators that assess organizational efficiency, quality, resiliency as well as revenue. While the innovation leader should be responsible for maintaining leading and lagging measures that communicate the impact of the program, the executive champion should work to ensure that quantitative and qualitative measures selected align with organizational philosophy, priorities, and desired narrative. At Urban Utilities, they started without metrics and focused on improving the culture. As their program matured, they began to focus on the return on investment for their entire innovation portfolio. Currently, they are experiencing a 10% return including both capital and operating expenditures. They also measure employee engagement in the innovation program. 40 percent of their employees are engaged in the program either through idea generation or participating in idea development sessions. - Rewarding and recognizing innovation activities - successes and failures. Reinforcement builds culture and culture is the key to sustainable innovation. Only 17% of utilities reported innovation-specific reward and recognition measures. Innovation programs track progress and recognize the contributions and the employees that generated them. Recognition can range from a simple 'thank you' to innovation activities recognized in a formal appraisal process. The executive innovation champion should work to provide a diverse range of measures to reward and recognize as well as foster collaboration with the responsible parties for communications and human resources. At the Louisville Water Company (LWC), they make it a point for their staff to be aware of LWC successes so they can be advocates and share it with their family, friends, and the community. These stories can be shared not only through employees but also through annual reports, education programs, social media, and involving the community in innovation projects. - Demonstrating continued support by example and participation. An open-door policy is not enough. The Executive Champion is the chief advocate and plays a key role in nurturing and supporting organizational behavior by participating in it. There are simple steps an executive innovation champion can perform to demonstrate a commitment to innovation including submitting an idea, participating as a judge or mentor for idea submitters, or hosting innovation meetings. At the City of Atlanta's Department of Watershed Management, they hired a Chief of Innovation to ensure time was dedicated to engaging the entire organization and developing an innovation strategy that established goals and actions aligned with the overall organizational strategy. Additionally, two specific opportunities for collaboration with the innovation leader that are pivotal to the success of the innovation program include: 1: Creating a meaningful innovation strategy. To help manage the tensions created by change, an organization can create an innovation strategy. An innovation strategy is a succinct guiding document that provides direction, pathways, and progress tracking. Strategy development provides a simple and collaborative process to align program leadership, process and culture including commitments and roles for the executive champion and innovation leader. Executive champions should ensure that the strategy uses the language of the organization and aligns with utility priorities. 2: Launching and sustaining an innovation program. Once the innovation strategy is developed, executive champions should help find a sustainable pace for the program by working with the innovation leader to align launch and management activities based on available resources, organizational priorities, and cultural change-readiness. Executive champions should also commit to regular progress and redirect meetings that may be held frequently following the launch of the program until the program has become established. Water utilities are adopting innovation management as a core practice to maximize the benefit of new technologies, services and process emerging across the water industry. A key to success is the engagement of the executive champion. This session will unpack the tactics summarized above to equip executive champions to work effectively with their innovation leaders as well as effectively leverage innovation management practices to build agile and fit for future organizations.