Old knowledge, new ideasReviving Sydney Water’s engineering community for better customer outcomes

ChallengeSydney Water has a history of almost 130 years of engineering practice, and is an employer of over 2,500 staff, with approximately one fifth being engineers, spanning across teams and generations. Inspired by a predominantly mature, experienced workforce and enthusiastic graduate engineers, the concept of an engineering community was established to connect, build and retain engineering knowledge.

The benefits of bringing experts together to learn about new internal and external initiatives, discuss challenges, collaborate on activities will improve our engineering knowledge and practices and ultimately result in better outcomes for our customers.

ApproachThe Engineering Community of Practice (CoP) was established by the committee through a staged approach. The Engineering CoP we established picks up where the organisation’s previous Engineering Club (which ran from 1936 to 2000) left off. In the first stage, a core committee of individuals developed a charter, aligning the community to Sydney Water's corporate objectives of being a world class organisation, with a high performing culture, and maintaining customers at the heart. The charter also set out the governance structures for the community and KPIs on membership and activity for CoP monitoring and reporting. Executive sponsors were identified from the two areas of business with the largest proportion of engineers. Once the CoP had developed the foundational documents and identified the key stakeholders, awareness and information about the CoP was primarily shared through word-of-mouth and as membership grew, Sydney Water’s enterprise collaboration and communication tools: Yammer, Skype and Sharepoint were utilised.

ImplementationA kick-off forum was advertised using internal communications media and held in February 2017. The agenda introduced attendees to the purpose and motivation of the community, the charter and a workshop to collect participant feedback on the CoP structure, operations and plans, in addition to their details which formed the basis for the membership database.

Following analysis of the feedback, six technical sub-groups were formed: Treatment Plants, Networks, Integrated Water Cycle Management, Hydraulics, Asset Management and Professional Practice (see diagram below). The sub-groups have been designed as autonomous groups with leaders, coordinators and members running these without ongoing committee direction.

Since its formation, the CoP has held quarterly forums to share information on general water engineering, whilst the sub-communities meet more frequently to share information and workshops on their specific topics. As well as sharing information, the CoP and sub-communities enable members to bring "wicked problems" to leverage the broader wisdom of the group. The forums also allow for cross-team and cross-divisional networking and for collaboration opportunities to be identified.

Lessons LearnedThe identification of engineers and extending our membership to those outside our two largest offices has been challenging. The geographically dispersed nature of engineering work has required communications through word-of-mouth and ensuring remote communications and online access to centralised resources is provided. We have through these mechanisms attracted over 100 members to the engineering CoP and we are seeking to double our growth in our 2nd year.

We have leveraged existing systems like Skype for Business, however there is scope for improvement in engaging with remote workers. Sharing of documentation, findings and learnings is also difficult as members are from divisions across the business. We are using a mix of platforms for communication and documentation and are still working towards integrating these with our existing document control systems.

OutcomesThe Engineering CoP has been set up for success with the development of a charter, governance, sub groups, online platforms for documentation and communication, membership list and metrics to quantify engagement and representation of the CoP. Qualitative wins so far have included connections made on projects across different stages of the planning lifecycle, problem-solving of a question around pressure reducing valves at an Asset Management meeting, and providing a forum for rapid dissemination of an engineering assurance framework.

Future VisionThe future vision for the CoP is to be a voice for engineers in the business, providing pathways to support professional development of engineers, reinforcing knowledge management, mentoring and inspiring Sydney Water’s engineers to contribute to world class performance and a high performing culture to produce the best outcomes for our customers. We also aspire to work with CoPs from other parts of the water industry to broaden our knowledge base and increase our capabilities.

Authors: Emily Ryan, Tiffany Chen, Elline Camilet, Gino Iori, Ken Wiggins, Mark McGowan, Luke Walsh, Fiona MackenzieThe authors of the paper would like to acknowledge the support and contributions of our sponsors, Emma Pryor and Gary Hurley

The sponsors are the executive advocates for the community of practice

Knowledgemanagementcoach

Secretariat:administrating the committee and organising the events

Treatment sub-group

Networkssub-group

IWCMsub-group

Hydraulicssub-group

Asset mgmtsub-group

Practicesub-group

Chair:run meetings and champion the advancement of the community

Management representative:provide strategic and leadership advice

Liveable citiessponsor

Customer deliverysponsor

Engineering CoP forums: Common engineering topics

The CoP committee: Organising the CoP

56373 SW OZWATER A1 POSTERS v5.indd 1 27/03/2018 9:50 AM

OLD KNOWLEDGE, NEW IDEAS: REVIVING SYDNEY WATER’S ENGINEERING COMMUNITY FOR BETTER CUSTOMER OUTCOMES

Emily Ryan 1, Tiffany Chen 1, Elline Camilet 1, Gino Iori 1, Ken Wiggins 1,Mark McGowan 1,

Luke Walsh 1, Fiona Mackenzie 1

1. Sydney Water Corporation, Sydney, NSW, Australia

KEYWORDS

Engineering, Community of Practice, Knowledge Transfer,

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Sydney Water is an employer of over 2,500 staff with approximately a third being engineers, spanning across

generations. With many in our workforce either in their early career, or nearing retirement, a new way of

working and managing knowledge transfer amongst our engineering community was needed. A group of

people from different parts of Sydney Water worked together to re-establish an Engineering Community of

Practise as a space for the engineers of the organisation to share and learn from one another. This also created

the opportunity to collaboratively tap into the water and wastewater engineering capability spread across the

organisation.

INTRODUCTION

Sydney Water is an employer of over 2,500 staff with approximately a third being engineers, spanning across

generations. With many in our workforce either in their early career, or nearing retirement, a new way of

working and managing knowledge transfer amongst our engineering community was needed. Further, in such

a large and geographically dispersed water utility, how can we leverage the tacit engineering knowledge of our

discrete teams and businesses? With over 125 years of history in the engineering practice, Sydney Water was

primed to revive what was once an engineering ‘club’, as an engineering Community of Practice (CoP) for a

new generation of engineers.

YEAR CASE STUDY WAS IMPLEMENTED

2017 to Present

CASE STUDY SUMMARY

The objectives of the Engineering CoP was to develop a forum for engineers to share knowledge and learnings,

and collaboratively solve problems from across different areas of operations. To develop the CoP, a core group

produced a charter, sought sponsors, established a virtual library, commenced quarterly forums and built a

grassroots membership base. Six months out from the formal kick-off, the CoP has over 110 registered

members, formed six specialist sub-groups, shared new approaches, resolved asset management concerns,

and importantly made connections and collaborations between business units amongst other achievements.

CASE STUDY DETAIL

The issue

Often in a large water utility teams that are seperated by distance and discipline will duliplicate work due to

lack of communication channels. This lack can result in a waste of time and money potentially leading to worse

outcomes for business and the customer.These situations can be avoided by providing opportunties for water

and wastewater engineers to collaborate.

Approach

The Engineering CoP was established by the committee through a staged approach In the first stage, a core

committee of individuals developed a charter, aligning the community to Sydney Water's corporate objectives

of being a world class organisation, with a high performing culture, and maintaining customers at the heart.

The charter also set out governance structures for the community and KPIs on membership and activity for

CoP monitoring and reporting. Executive sponsors were identified from the two business with the largest

proportion of engineers. Once the CoP had developed the foundational documents and identified the key

stakeholders awareness and information about the CoP was primarily shared through word of mouth and as

membership grew, Sydney Water’s enterprise collaboration and communication tools: Yammer, Skype and

Sharepoint were utilised

Activities and their implementation

The kick-off forum was advertised using internal communication media and held in February 2017. The agenda

introduced attendees to the purpose and motivation of the community, the charter and a workshop to collect

participant feedback on the CoP structure, operations and plans, in addition to their details which formed the

basis for the membership database.

Following analysis of the feedback, six technical sub-communities were formed: Treatment Plants, Networks,

Integrated Water Cycle Mangement, Hydraulics, Asset Management and Professional Practice (see Figure 1).

The sub-communities have been designed as autonomous groups with leaders, coordinators and members

running these without ongoing committee direction.

Since its formation, the CoP has held quarterly forums to share information on general water engineering,

whilst the sub-communities meet more frequently to share information and workshops on their specific topics.

As well as sharing information, the CoP and sub-communities enable members to bring "wicked problems" to

leverage the broader wisdom of the group. The forums also allow for cross-team and cross-divisional

networking and for collaboration opportunities to be identified.

Outcomes and measurable impacts

In developing the charter, metrics to quantify engagement and representation in the CoP were selected. These

included: membership numbers, meeting attendance, tracking of relevant demography data, and tracking of

qualitative ‘wins’ and success stories from the CoP.

In June 2017, we commenced tracking membership, attendance and demographics and we will be monitoring

these. Qualitative wins so far have included connections made on projects across different stages of the

planning lifecycle, problem-solving of a question around pressure reducing valves at an Asset Management

meeting, and providing a forum for rapid dissemination of an engineering assurance framework.

Sustainability of the CoP

The grassroots nature, and participant-led focus of the CoP has enabled it to maintain momentum in the eight

months since inception and outcomes are expected to be sustainable over the long term. By running the group

through lunch and learn sessions, and focusing on digital communication channels, costs associated to

resourcing and disruptions to particpants ordinary work has been minimised. These indirect costs to the

business, although small, are expected to be offset by avoided costs on projects, and informal employee

development.

Lessons learnt and critical success factors

The identification of engineers and extending our membership to those outside of our two largest offices has been challenging. The geographically dispersed nature of engineering work has required communications through word of mouth and ensuring remote communications and online access to centralised resources is provided. While we’ve been able to leverage off existing systems like Skype for Business, there is scpoe for improvement

in engaging with remote workers. Sharing of documentation, findings and learnings is also difficult as members

are from divisions across the business. We are using a mix of platforms for communication and documentation

and are still working towards intergrating these with our existing document control systems.

Success factors to this point have been largely anecdotal – being told by members about ‘wins’ that have come

about through greater understanding and experience gained from new networks and workshops. We’re

working to find better ways to measure these as performance KPIs.

Future vision

The future vision for the CoP is to be a voice for engineers in the business, providing pathways to support

professional development of engineers, reinforcing knowledge management, mentoring and inspiring Sydney

Water’s engineers to contribute to world class performance and a high performing culture to produce the best

outcomes for our customers.

Figure 1: Governance of the Engineering Community of Practice