Renewable Energy Asset Management Software Onboarding
Before I started this blog, I re-read some of our earlier articles and made a promise to myself that I would not use the term ‘Braggawatt’ in any context.
Here’s my question for you all: why does the term ‘onboarding’ fill a lot of us with woe and foreboding? Why do thoughts such as “We’re never going to get this done on time” AND “right, now I’m going to have to organize everything before we even start” spring immediately to mind? I think with a little agility and a bit of planning, we can push these two thoughts out of your mind right now.
About 35 years ago, one of my RAF instructors stood up in front of a class of eager aircraft technicians, wrote: ‘P P P P P P, P.’ and left it there. Yes, you did read that right. At opportune moments throughout the class, he would point to the collection of P’s and ask, ‘any ideas?’ After a long and dry session about how to meet NATO’s readiness requirements, he decided to enlighten us. He wrote: Pre Planning Prevents Pee Poor Performance, and, with a dramatic pause, Perhaps! It’s something that still rings true today.
How do we make onboarding easier for the entire asset management team? We start by figuring out our goal. At what point can we confidently declare that we are ‘onboard’? For most of us, this used to mean once all the boxes are checked, we’re done. However, the complexity of the industry we are in means getting all those boxes checked might be the wrong thing to focus on. If you’re growing, and we hope you are, there will always be new portfolios, new projects, and new data streams.
I recommend an alternative approach: consider yourself onboarded when you begin to see value, to see results. That could mean your first benchmark is simply issuing an invoice, or recording and scheduling all contractual obligations, or that you’re onboarded when the Stakeholder Engagement plan is in place and notifications are flying off your desk, automatically, or all of the above. We chat, we choose!
To keep the grey hairs under control and ensure onboarding is always stress-free, understand that nothing needs to be set in stone. Of course, the end goal shouldn’t change, but the journey should be flexible. Instead of having fixed timelines for each step (the classic Waterfall approach), setting up (incremental) stages with checkpoints that have a collection of deliverables as part of them is a simpler way of managing the overall progress without getting tied down to details. We could even use the checkpoints as a meter to show what’s expected from all of us throughout the onboarding process.
Building a good technology stack for your business is never going to be a comfortable process. There’s a learning curve. But it’s that or stagnation.
Let’s remember that we’ve bought this platform to change (for the better, I hope) the way we’ve been working, so trying to replicate a bunch of Excel spreadsheets will really be a waste of time and money, believe me. Embrace the change, it’s super empowering. Although there will inevitably be some effort required, as long as we keep the age-old KISS (Keep It Simple Smarty) concept in our minds, and break things down into manageable chunks, we’ll alleviate the feeling of impending overload.
‘Braggawhat?’ – Nailed it!
