The water sector has faced a unique array of challenges in recent years, from water scarcity and ageing infrastructure to the intensifying pressures created by the fight against climate change. With a new round of funding due to be announced, it’s a fascinating moment for the sector, which needs to find new ways of addressing the complex issues it faces.

Melissa Tallack has been working in the sector for 30 years. As Managing Director of C2Life and co-lead on the Stream initiative, Melissa is well-placed to comment on the challenges facing the sector, and how it needs to respond to surmount them.

We sat down with Melissa to discuss her career, the increasingly vital role of open data in the sector, and her thoughts on what characterises the best leaders. 

Click below to listen to the podcast interview or continue reading for a summary of Melissa's thoughts and insights.

Advancing in the water sector

During her 30-year career, Melissa has worked across a wide range of roles and departments, spending time on the front lines of the industry. She credits this with giving her a holistic understanding of how its various parts need to work together to solve problems.

Melissa argues that curiosity, willingness to learn and adaptability are all critical skills for those looking to progress since they enable aspiring leaders to gain a better understanding of the range of roles involved in projects and the diverse needs and priorities of those who carry them out. While Melissa has spent the last third of her career in data and digital, she believes the skills and experience she gained earlier in her career have been fundamental to her understanding of how to lead and support others.

Although her career powerfully illustrates that progress for women and minorities is possible, Melissa believes the sector still has more work to do to improve its diversity credentials. If everybody looks and thinks the same way, blind spots develop and opportunities are missed. Maximising the diversity of teams and workforces helps to produce better outcomes. The water sector is currently facing a range of challenges and enhancing diversity will be fundamental to fuelling the innovation needed to surmount them.

Open Data

While the water industry has come under fire in recent years, it has plenty of successes to shout about. One of these is its use of open data.

Water companies work with huge quantities of data. The open data initiative seeks to make certain areas of this information more widely available to help drive innovation. Sharing relevant data around a given challenge increases transparency and makes it easier for senior stakeholders to establish the best mix of investments and interventions needed. It also makes it easier for problem-solvers from a variety of backgrounds to collaborate and develop innovative solutions, reducing the time-to-market of helpful new products and services.

There are currently 16 water companies working together to open up more data in the sector, and there have already been positive results, particularly in relation to problems relating to blockages and pollution. Melissa thinks that as the sector gathers more success stories, there will be a greater willingness to collaborate and use data in different ways, driving innovation further forward.

Melissa notes that many of the challenges currently faced by the water sector, particularly complex environmental challenges, also affect a range of other utilities. Energy and water, for instance, are highly co-dependent. As a result, trying to solve problems in isolation is often unsustainable, highlighting the need for effective collaboration. Being able to share relevant data and intelligence quickly is vital for enabling both sectors to respond to setbacks and grapple with challenging climactic events.

While it is important not to let excessive caution around data become a brake on progress, effective steps must be taken to control the risks and safeguard people’s personal data. Implementing a priority services register can be an effective method of controlling access to sensitive data but requires a robust governance-led approach and the ability to reliably enforce restrictions.

AMP8

With the Water sector rapidly approaching its next investment cycle, businesses are waiting with bated breath to find out what the final determinations will be.

Melissa believes the biggest challenges following the next round of investment will concern the nature and scale of the changes needed. In many cases the amount of money allocated won’t match the amount asked for, meaning that there will be shortfalls and pressure on some organisations in the sector to find new ways to hit their targets.

Traditional solutions will need to be married with newer digital solutions, and this will require greater collaboration between different areas, such as digital and mechanical engineering. There will be a greater need than previously for multidisciplinary teams to come together to find new ways to solve problems.

Melissa believes that in the next few years it will be critical to be able to think and problem-solve beyond the confines of a given company. In the face of the unique challenges facing companies in the sector, many of the skillsets needed to solve a given problem may not automatically be present within that company. Open data and shared data can be pivotal here, enabling companies to partner with outside agents who can bring different skills to bear on problems. A particularly exciting possibility is the involvement of citizen scientists, which has the capacity to be a game-changer for the sector.

Traits of a Good Leader

A key trait of effective leaders, particularly in the water sector, is an ability to treat the challenges their business faces as their own, and to have a clear awareness of the skills and techniques they can bring to the table in order to get things done.

It is increasingly important, Melissa thinks, for business leaders to be able to speak the language of data and digital leaders, and for data and digital leaders to speak the language of business. Leaders who know how to make things easier for those working to resolve challenges can drive better solutions for customers and the environment.

Looking back, Melissa identifies three crucial insights that have been pivotal to her own career. The first is that a desire for perfection can be the enemy of progress; an obsession with constant refinement can stand in the way of learning lessons and adapting to new challenges. A second is knowing how to break seemingly insurmountable problems into smaller parts, creating a series of ‘false summits’. Third, is the importance of identifying the things that are out of your control and responding to what you can affect.

While some of the challenges facing the sector might like a deterrent for some considering entering the sector, Melissa argues that there has never been a better time to work in Water. The range of challenges to be confronted means that there is something for everyone in the sector, and Melissa’s own career shows that curiosity and a willingness to keep learning and evolving can take you right to the top of the industry.

We’d like to thank Melissa for joining us on our Talking with…podcast series. If you'd like to be the first to listen to our expert podcast interviews or are interesting in listening to our previous episodes, you can subscribe to us on Spotify.