Member Spotlight

Sharon Hamilton, Intelligent Control Centre Manager – Scottish Water

Scottish Water is the statutory corporation responsible for providing water and sewerage services across Scotland. It’s a public body accountable to the Scottish Government. Trusted to care for the water on which Scotland depends and is proud of the service it provides. Every day Scottish Water:

• Delivers 1.51 billion litres of clear, fresh drinking water and;
• Removes 1.07 billion litres of waste water they treat this, recover resources from and return safely to the environment.

The water and wastewater services they deliver are vital to the daily lives of 2.62 million households and 159,219 business premises, and support a flourishing Scotland. Scottish Water’s key focus is on delivering an excellent service, providing great value for money, and reducing their effect on the environment, going beyond net zero emissions. As one of the UK’s top performing water companies, customers and communities are at the heart of everything they do.

You’ll be delivering a keynote on ‘Empowering Human-Centred Digital Transformation’ at the 2nd SWAN UnConference in London. Can you give us a preview of what “human-centered” transformation looks like at Scottish Water?

For us it is all about putting our people first, enabling them to thrive, innovate and drive our transformation from within our organisation rather than just implementing change that feels like it is being done to them. Listening, collaborating and understanding where there are opportunities to transform that will enhance not only employee experience, but also deliver benefits that align with our strategic ambitions.

Examples of this are enabling remote control technology to reduce travel and the demand on our people out of core hours, using analytics to understand asset health so proactive, preventative interventions can be taken to prevent service interruptions that impact our customers, our people and our reputation.

By focusing on the needs and experiences of our people and delivering real positive change that individuals across our organisation are benefiting from has been an amazing experience. This is also having a positive effect on the culture of our organisation and how we work and learn together.

As Intelligent Control Centre Manager, how do you approach strategic planning to ensure both operational excellence and long-term transformational goals at Scottish Water?

The transformation of our Intelligent Control Centre is critical to achieving Scottish Water’s long term Strategic Ambitions of Service Excellence, Beyond Net Zero and Great Value and Sustainability. Hoewever, we must ensure that we do this in a way that does not impact our Operational Resilience and the service we provide. Getting the balance right is key. We have approached this by developing an approach that allows us to implement changes and continual improvements that enhance our daily operations in an incremental way.

In addition, it is important to have a strategic change plan that aligns with Scottish Water’s Strategic Ambitions anda clear vision for the future. This enables us to build new capabilities and new technologies to achieve our future aspirations. Taking ownership, leading the change, engaging and communicating with our people is key. Our transformation journey is led by our people ensuring we listen and empower our teams is so important. Transformation is not just about technology; the approach to change is equally important.

Systemic change requires more than just updating technology. How have you fostered alignment across different teams and departments to ensure a unified approach at Scottish Water?

It is important to recognise that systemic change requires much more than just updating technology. We have employed several strategies to foster alignment and enable collaboration across different teams and departments. It’s important that organisations act as “one team” in the approach to Transformation programmes. Lots of communication and engagement with everyone in the organisation ensuring we are clear on why we need to change and what it means for individuals.

Leadership alignment, a clear Vision and strong Sponsorship is crucial to drive the change. We have implemented an agile approach to our ICC transformation programme. This is a cross functional team with sponsorship and support from other key functions such as Digital, People and Strategic Planning teams. This has been effective in helping achieve our future aspirations and ensuring that we are being diverse in our thinking and approach.

How we use data is also key in developing technologies that enable us to share Asset Data we have in the Control Centre to extend asset life and support investment decision making by having one version of the truth. By implementing these strategies, we’ve been able to foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement at Scottish Water. This has enabled us to successfully implement agile practices and drive systemic change across the organisation.

What do you think water utilities can do to appeal to the next generation of professionals, especially those looking to enter the smart water and digital transformation space?

To attract the next generation of professionals, particularly those interested in smart water and digital transformation, we need to rethink how we present our industry. The water sector is an incredibly exciting field, offering the chance to make a tangible difference by ensuring access to clean water for future generations—what could be more inspiring?

The rapid growth of new technologies such as AI, IoT, and data analytics is astounding and promises continuous evolution. This field is brimming with opportunities to work on cutting-edge projects, contribute to meaningful change, and build a fulfilling career that blends innovation and impact.