Justin is the Director of Technology Solutions at Thrivence, a Barge Design Solutions company. Justin has over 19 years of experience applying technology that complement traditional engineering services for Federal, State and Local Government clients as well as private energy, water, gas, and electric utilities.

To state the obvious, water professionals and the utilities they work for must accomplish a tremendous amount of work. As we continue in this age of digital transformation, we search for a single system that will solve all our problems and help us accomplish the workload. Sometimes even the search for that solution paralyzes our ability to move forward. If we have made a decision on a platform that will “save the day” our momentum and progress suffers when we see our solution fail to meet our multitude of needs.

Selecting and implementing technology for work order management, asset tracking, metering, monitoring, modeling, and the other many things that support the operations of water utilities is not easy. Technology-focused providers want to sell and implement a solution while leaders at the utility don’t know exactly what they want but know that they need a solution to a problem. The sales process is filled with confusing tech speak and head nodding. All of this leads to some sort of disappointment at the end of the implementation.

This presentation will illustrate that there is not a single platform, or a “silver bullet”, that will solve all a utility’s problems. It will also show that the creation of a single solution for every individual challenge is a bad idea too. There is a balance between a single solution that is over engineered and too many disparate platforms. This balance is accomplished when the focus is on the most important component to technology, the people. We will look at how some utilities have put their existing staff and processes first when determining what solution should be implemented and at what time during the digital transformation process. We will see how beneficial it is to put the emphasis on people when considering technology at a utility.

After looking at a couple of case studies, the audience will see how a people-first approach to technology works. These case studies will also show samples of technology that have been implemented using this process which might provoke thought to implement something similar at their workplace.