Founded in 1989, Pennon is a FTSE 250 listed company and one of the leading businesses in the UK water sector, providing clean water and wastewater services.
Pennon – Data Migration
Project Context
Pennon faced a critical point with their aging embedded server essential for mandated reporting. Despite two prior attempts, the complexity of migration to a new solution remained a significant challenge. Pennon approached Nine Feet Tall (NFT) to address the unsustainable crashes and complexity associated with the system. Pennon looked to Nine Feet Tall to create a viable plan that would facilitate a transition from this historical infrastructure. Crucial to the success of this migration was the uncovering of antiquated data flows, creating a communication strategy, battling resistance to change, and addressing apprehensions about moving historic data.
Project Delivery
NFT introduced a light-touch governance structure, ensuring continuity with weekly check-ins and monthly project board sessions. Stakeholder interviews and documentation reviews were conducted to understand the historic data, project’s current state and way forward. As a result of this work a Project Initiation Document was produced, outlining objectives, a short-term plan, and necessary feedback loops with Pennon, fostering a shared understanding. Furthermore, we outlined strategic and tactical approaches, assigned estimated costs and risk ratings to each option, clarifying potential paths forward. This boosted executive confidence in deciding the preferred solution.
NFT facilitated the development of essential strategies, including stakeholder mapping and impact assessments, collaboration with a third-party vendor for the new server design, and the creation of a communications strategy. Additionally, NFT worked with Pennon to define ideal ways of working and decommissioning steps for the existing server, aligning with the proposed solution.
Outcomes
NFT delivered a comprehensive roadmap for the design phase, providing step-by-step checkpoints with clear timescales for system implementation. This roadmap offered Pennon clarity on the next steps, ensuring a smooth transition to the new system. The high-level map created by NFT provides transparency and alignment with Pennon’s objectives.
Nine Feet Tall’s collaboration with Pennon successfully navigated the challenges associated with migrating from a legacy system. By introducing just enough governance, facilitating effective communication, and addressing resistance to change, NFT empowered Pennon to envision and implement a practical and feasible technical solution. The roadmap and high-level map now guide Pennon through the next steps, ensuring a seamless transition towards a sustainable and reliable data management system.
AI Waterfit Live Project
In Q4 of 2023, Pennon’s WaterFit Live project saw a surge in inbound queries, stretching external facing team resource. 9FT was approached to explore the feasibility of implementing an AI tool to streamline query responses. 9FT’s involvement aimed to assess AI’s potential to connect various data sources for complex queries and provide alternative solutions. The core deliverable was a comprehensive report recommending the consolidation of data into a SharePoint Online resource linked to an AI tool, ensuring consistent, rapid information retrieval. This approach, favouring simplicity and cost-effectiveness, utilised existing infrastructure and was preferred by the client, marking a clear direction towards enhanced query response efficiency. The final report presented three options, with the recommended solution addressing the underlying issues more effectively.
