I’ve been in a number of conversations recently, whether that be through training delivery or coaching sessions where we have ended up talking about the different roles that water companies create in order to solve problems on their networks.
These conversations fascinate me, especially when we start to think about how these roles do ‘work’ on the network.
One common theme that always comes up is around communication and the idea that there may be a number of problems that arise as a result of how we design and execute our work.
So, this month i thought a quick light shone on this may not be a bad idea.
Most jobs are problems
One thing that water companies have is a lot of break-fix work. Something breaks and then we go fix it. These jobs are all problems in their own right but can be dealt with by different people, and so at a given time we could have a number of people thinking about interconnected problems in different ways. Because of the complex nature of this, it is possible, that we may cause our own problems.
The areas that we send people in to do the ‘problem solving work’ could be a Drainage Area Zone (DAZ) or Demand District Metered Area (DMA) depending on whether its waste or clean water operations but essentially, we are trying to achieve the same thing. An optimised area that can deliver for Customers at best cost.
In order to do the best for any DAZ or DMA, it’s important that the people we ask to look after their health and performance are set up in such a way that effective communication and collaboration are present through a set of habits and behaviours, not left to chance, but designed into the environment.

Shared Purpose is key
Teams are generally set up to deal with different kinds of problems at different scale with network, pumping, treatment, leakage, customer all typical ways of splitting down teams, some clean, some waste.
Ultimately, these teams are there to solve problems on the network, but if we’re not careful will only play a part role in helping to improve DAZ/DMA performance and maybe even hinder it, if we constrain communication and collaboration.
In reality, the challenge that is often apparent from an outsider looking in, is that we have meetings and conversations, often only in our specific teams and not as a group of people focussed on a collective effort to improve the overall performance of these areas.
Purpose can become fractured and sometimes even competing if we’re not careful.
It’s not an easy problem to solve
It’s true. But as with any problem, you have to realise it is one before you can do anything about it.
It’s not easy to work on as it starts with how, as leaders, we think about and structure our work. It’s always been the way of most organisations to put the specific skillsets together in order to be prescriptive about the roles, the responsibilities, the measures of success at that level. It’s easier to control and manage in this way.
The problem with this thinking is that it can be restrictive of progress towards a higher level of performance in relation to what we are really looking for, which in this instance is the healthiest set of DAZ’s and DMA’s that we can obtain.
So, when you have a think about the areas you work in or support, whether that’s Waste or Clean water, here’s some questions to help you think about what you’re currently doing:
How well do people connect, communicate and collaborate across the roles that look after your DAZ’s and DMA’s?
What are the habits and behaviours that these groups of people have that support interconnections against purpose AND did you design for these?
How do you measure the level of interconnectivity in these roles?
I believe there is a great opportunity in understanding and driving improvement in this way to effect performance in front line teams. Have a think about those questions and see where your thinking lands.