T I TUS Infrastructure Services Limited #215 – 737 GOLDSTREAM AVE VICTORIA, BC, V9B 2X4 TEL. 250 727-8355 Making Renewable Utilities Profitable Are you a leader? Have you been charged with overseeing a renewable energy or water reclamation project? Are you overwhelmed by the responsibility? Are you concerned that your project may not deliver the results you are expecting? Are you concerned the budget might spiral out of control? FEAR NOT! The good news is there are only a few things you need to know to be successful! Chapter 2: Do your homework! In this chapter we will look at: • Why Do Your Homework – the clarity required to lead • Learning from Others – the importance of applying lessons learned before starting • The Rule of 80’s – keeping challenges in perspective • Do Not Get Lost in the Details – Get Things Done Why Do Your Homework! Perhaps the toughest thing to do since grade school is your homework! Some things never change. Why, is homework so hard to do? Perhaps, because we get caught up in the details, get overwhelmed and have never figured out where to start, and that cripples our ability to focus and Building a Renewable Program A Leaders Guide To GETTING THINGS DONE! CHAPTER 2
Transcript
TITUS Infrastructure Services Limited
#215 – 737 GOLDSTREAM AVE
VICTORIA, BC, V9B 2X4
TEL. 250 727-8355
Making Renewable Utilities Profitable
Are you a leader? Have you been charged with overseeing a renewable energy or water
reclamation project? Are you overwhelmed by the responsibility? Are you concerned that your
project may not deliver the results you are expecting? Are you concerned the budget might spiral
out of control?
FEAR NOT!
The good news is there are only a few things you need to know to be successful!
Chapter 2: Do your homework!
In this chapter we will look at:
• Why Do Your Homework – the clarity required to lead
• Learning from Others – the importance of applying lessons learned before starting
• The Rule of 80’s – keeping challenges in perspective
• Do Not Get Lost in the Details – Get Things Done
Why Do Your Homework!
Perhaps the toughest thing to do since grade school is your homework!
Some things never change.
Why, is homework so hard to do? Perhaps, because we get caught up in the details, get
overwhelmed and have never figured out where to start, and that cripples our ability to focus and
Building a Renewable Program
A Leaders Guide
To
GETTING THINGS DONE!
CHAPTER 2
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get things done. Perhaps it is because we have so many stakeholders that are demanding so
many resources we do not know how to deliver.
The good news is, the following will help you refine your focus down to the most important 4%,
and leave the other 96% to others.
Don’t get me wrong, you still need to “Do Your Homework”, however 96% of what you need to
know, you can learn from others who have come before you!
However, before you get caught up in the above, go back to Chapter 1, and make sure you know
what your critical success factors are, and that you have broken those critical success factors into
manageable bite size components. Then you will find your homework so much more enjoyable,
and rewarding, no matter where you start.
Learning from Others
Before you start investing a lot of time and money into a project; sit back and consider what you
are trying to achieve. Then look to others to see what they have done, how they went about it,
what were their challenges, what were their successes and what would they have done
differently. Then, if you can look to see who else has been through those challenges and how
they resolved them, you are well on your way to being successful.
The most important thing to know before you start!
In keeping with Churchill’s directive there are two things everyone who leads a renewable
energy and water reclamation project needs to know:
1. 80% of what you want to do has already been done somewhere – find it!
2. 80% of what makes a project unique is common to all – learn from others!
Too many projects start with the assumption that their project is unique. They assume they have
a unique location, a unique set of demands or regulations, or even a unique technology and that
makes their project unique. However, what they do not understand is the incredible strength that
comes from finding commonalities with other projects. They also don’t understand the freedom
to innovate that comes by understanding that of the 20% of what makes their project unique,
80% has been dealt with by someone already, and they can learn from that, as well.
To test if the 20% of what makes your project seem unique to you, is common to other projects,
don’t limit yourself to your industry or technology vertical. In fact, when you break down what
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makes your project unique, simply categorize your challenges or unique features. For example,
those unique site constraints, or environmental constraints, or labour needs, or time constraints,
or regulations. Doing this, you will find many more similarities than differences. Similarly,
when you categorize the unique technology features, for example feedstock handling, flow
balancing, equalization, temperature control, pressure balancing, materials or software controls,
you will find that 80% of those features or issues are common, and you can learn from them.
Further, if you find groups or organizations that are in other industries or market segments, then
you have a great opportunity to get objective information and make a step change in the quality
of your results. It is also a great opportunity to take proven technologies from one market and
apply those innovations in another market.
The Power of Math
If you can learn from both similar projects, and those projects that have common unique
challenges or features you are 96% of the way to a successful project.
80% + 80% × 20% = 96%
This Rule of 80’s means when you finish your homework
only 4% of your project is truly unique.
If you take the Rule of 80’s to heart, and find projects that are similar, and then find projects that
have faced some of the similar challenges or have some of the unique features – you don’t need
to start from scratch! You can get a jump on your project, and GET THINGS DONE!
If you can do this, you can make a huge step forward. What is important is, you don’t need deep
technical knowledge – you just need a desire to learn and ask questions, and keep asking!
Don’t get lost in the details –GET THINGS DONE.
If only 4% of your project is truly unique, and you have the homework to demonstrate that, you
have incredible strength to lead your project with clarity. Once you have done your homework,
you can engage your staff, consultants and contractors in a more valuable manner. However, do
not get distracted from the above with all the details that may be presented. If you are getting
distracted, step back and look at your homework and remember the Rule of 80! Look for the
80% that is common to similar projects and then look for 80% that is unique to other projects.
This will greatly simplify your job and keep your team on track, your consultants and contractors
on point, and most importantly help you GET THINGS DONE!
With these two principles you can make sure your project is successful in the face of the
inevitable!
What is inevitable?
1. Aversion to new technologies
2. Propensity to re-invent the wheel
3. Vested interests in starting everything from scratch
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4. High capital costs required to start
5. High carrying cost of invested capital
6. Long procurement timelines
7. Risk of obsolescence
8. Underutilized capital
9. Vested interest in keeping status quo
10. No opportunity to build on lessons learned
11. The list goes on!
Chapter Summary
• Chapter 1: Getting Things Done – Know where you are going and why
• Chapter 2: Do Your Homework – Gets you 96% of the way to a successful project
• Chapter 3: Know Where to Start – Once your homework is done – then what?
• Chapter 4: Keeping Things Small Enough – The key to Getting Things Done!
TITUS Turnkey Integrated Resource Management (TIRM) Platform
TITUS has developed a Turnkey Integrated Resource Management (TIRM) Platform for its
clients. The TITUS TIRM Platform provides its clients with modular, integrated, renewable
utility services that are simple, fast and cost effective for our clients to deploy.
TITUS has found that the more you modularize infrastructure the more you are able to repurpose
and reuse or resell the resources that were otherwise wasted. Once you give waste a purpose,
you create value and reduce cost. These two drivers can make renewable infrastructure more
cost effective than conventional infrastructure. This allows TITUS to recover, repurpose and
resell resources that were otherwise wasted within a community, accelerating the payback on
renewable utilities, making them more profitable sooner than conventional utilities.
Thirdly, a modular approach allows you to control:
• Financial models that match investment to cash flow;
• Deployment of modules as the development grows or retrofit expands;
• Redeployment of modules if demand drops or new technologies evolve;
