July 10, 2025 • 22 mins
Working in the energy industry as a Business Analyst? Or about to walk into the space?
In this episode, I unpack the ten things every BA must know—from navigating legacy systems and regulation, to understanding how decarbonisation, safety, and customer experience are changing the game. This is real-world, no-fluff insight drawn from hands-on experience across energy projects large and small.
Whether you're in generation, retail, or transmission—this one’s worth your time.
🎧 Listen now and power up your BA skills.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Today we're switching on the lights.
Literally. I've worked in the energy sector
and let me tell you, it's a world of high stakes, heavy
regulation, health and safety, and massive transformation from
smart meters to grid upgrades todecarbonization targets.
(00:22):
Energy isn't just power lines and billing systems, it's a data
rich, politically charged, customer facing and deeply
technical space. So here are 10 hard truths and
helpful tips for any BA who's interested in working in the
energy sector. The Better Business Analysis
(00:43):
Institute presents the Better Business analysis podcast with
kingsburyn Walsh to the Better Business analysis podcast with
your host Benji Walsh. I have been, I'm well with the
flu for the last couple of weeks.
So thanks for joining me. This week.
(01:04):
We are talking about TNR truce when it comes to working in the
energy sector and the energy sector is quite large.
I've worked in the generation space, I've worked in the space
where we sell to consumers, which happened to be one
company, Genesis Energy as a contractor.
(01:24):
I also worked four company and license designs.
They had quite a few clients in the energy sector, including
Mighty River Power, which was a generator of hydropower and we
helped them with their billing system.
Separately to that, I worked at Z Energy both as a enterprise
(01:45):
business analyst and ABA Senior BA, working across some of the
asset stuff there and just generally putting together their
portfolio. So I have touched into a few
areas. There probably are the other
areas where I've worked where energy has been a focus area.
So today I'm going to talk about10 tips, which I think will help
(02:08):
you #1 is that it's critical infrastructure, OK?
Energy is an essential service. It's a commodity that we will
need. And failure isn't just an
outage. It can be a national issue.
Your systems affect homes and hospitals, transport the
(02:31):
vulnerable and industry of course.
And if you're an analyst doing some fault reporting for a grid
provider in New Zealand, that's transpower.
I know a lot of people work Algoritas managed by them.
Your work effects how fast line crews get dispatched after a
storm and that's a public safetyimpact and an an issue.
(02:53):
So it's quite important the workthat you do.
So I think that's the first point.
The tip there is that you shouldalways map your work to the
critical operations and energy. So that's your that's the key
outcome of value that you provide.
So what's the customer impact ofthis area failed?
(03:14):
I think that's the way to look at it in terms of something
special. Obviously, you can apply all the
other dimensions in the way thatyou look at things.
But for energy, it's ultimately about making sure that that
person has access to the energy and whatever format that is,
what channel that they need it. OK, so that's the critical part.
Number 2 is that what much like banking, which I haven't had
(03:37):
much to do apart from clients inbanking, is that the legacy
systems are deeply embedded. You'll find mainframes, ancient
asset registers, and brittle integrations, and your
transformation efforts often involve tiptoeing around 25 year
old systems still running close systems.
(03:59):
Now it's not good enough to pullthose out.
So I as opposed to other areas where you maybe focus on the
future state more. I always talk about that current
state analysis might actually bea requirement, deep requirement
here because you can't move peaksystem system.
And much like, I guess if you think about controllers,
(04:23):
hardware controllers. So the energy is like has a lot
of hardware involved in it with switching and whatnot.
And some of that, the programming that that that
allows that to happen is usuallyin lower level programming
languages like C, for example. And those systems are older,
they're reliable, they are highly regulated.
(04:45):
And so your systems, your newer systems which are written with
higher level programming languages, AKA things like web,
web work and web apps, they haveto talk to those systems.
And it's not, you can't just easily RIP out those hardware
based systems. So an example here is that your
new API platform needs to talk to a billing system built in,
(05:09):
say Cobalt, because it's it might read Cobalt was an old
programming language are still used and that Cobalt and C are
like this lower level language that is really good at talking
to hardware or Britain on the Commission critical systems.
And a lot of times those divisions are old.
They're retiring. There's only a few people that
(05:30):
know how the systems work. So that current standard
analysis you're almost doing an as built when you start that
sometimes isn't required. The tip here is that don't
promise same as integration OK without checking technical
reality. It is an area of integration
that's really important and always include those tech SMEs
(05:52):
in early discovery. It's, it's critical that you do
that. Number 3 is that acid data is a
mess, OK? And it matters a lot.
So from subsystems to Transformers to pulse energy,
businesses rely on what's knowing what they own, OK, where
they are in their condition. So I did a massive asset
(06:16):
management piece of work for Z Energy, which is a petroleum,
owns basically the main providerof petrol in New Zealand, as in
it has the national contract to the government.
So it's critical. We have BP, we have all the
others here, but Z Energy is specifically responsible for
keeping the network alive. And so you need to really know
(06:39):
what your assets are. And Windshell, which you might
know, was acquired by Infotel and then rebranded to the Energy
in New Zealand. Shell assets weren't in good
condition, so we had to do a huge asset order and put our
processes in place. So it was incomplete,
inconsistent information, duplicate records and we were
(07:00):
outsourcing the maintenance to other providers.
So we really need to do that from start.
That was one of my bigger projects when I first started at
Z. So your project to automate
maintenance schedules might stall because you don't actually
know where. I don't know, all the valves are
on a petrol station or we had examples where there was a lot
(07:25):
of the tanks that go underneath a petrol station were old and
needed to be replaced. We didn't really know the state
of them. Some of them actually went over
property lines to properties we don't know.
So there's a lot going on there.ABA tip there is to validate
your assumptions about the data early, including the asset data,
run the sample audits, talk to field OPS and I'll tell you
(07:47):
what's really missing. Or they'll tell you what they
don't know, which is just as important.
And that's risk. And that, you know, you need
time to resolve those problems. And it can be quite expensive to
find out where your assets actually are.
And that's sometimes needed #4 is that regulation?
And we've talked about this before in education, but this is
(08:08):
a different type of regulation. This is more like an education.
You have the kind of carrot whatyou're aiming for and energy,
energy industry regulation shapes everything but more from
a stick point of view is AKA if you don't do it, you're in
trouble. So regulatory compliance is
consistent and complex. Your pricing reviews, emission
(08:31):
targets, reliability standards, making sure you've not got a
monopoly sometimes and commodities you need to make
sure that you're not ripping people off the Commerce
Commission or the the governmentdepartment that make sure that
you're not price fixing and whatnot is all over you and the
industry industry. So your your analysis often
(08:55):
supports regulatory reporting and it needs to be ready for
audit, government audit, independent government audit.
An example might be a change to network reliability standards
means you need to update how outages are measured across 4
systems, for example. And BA tip might be always ask,
is this link to compliance obligation if yet?
(09:20):
If yes, prioritize clarity and transpirity over everything
else. OK, so you need to make sure
you've if this could be audited.So an external auditor is
looking at your work. Health and safety is the other
aspect in this industry that's quite hot #5 and this is
something I found at probably both Genesis and Z Energy is
(09:45):
that the transition to green energy is real and fast.
So yes, the world is currently changing politically at the
moment, but decarbonization is actually a live project and not
a future plan. So you'll find that seems
ironic, but the companies that may be responsible for more of
(10:09):
our greenhouse gas emissions or industries.
So energy producing of energy isgenerally has, you know, digging
for coal, which is what Genesis was doing, or seed energy, which
is importing fuel or refining fuel at the time when I was
there. You know, they are looking at,
(10:30):
there's a lot of pressure on them and they are looking at
ways in which to decarbonize what they do.
So when solar E VS Z bought, youknow, energy distribution
company Flick in order to do more stuff in E VS, they
invested in some other initiatives around that space
like biofuels. So the idea of disputed
(10:57):
generation solar, it's kind of up.
I guess it's flipping around howgrids are managed because that
grids, the whole grid, which is a huge infrastructure area is
managed to deal with, you know, basically major producers
producing electricity and it going a long way when you start
(11:17):
generating your own power at home, the grid has trouble
handling that. So it's quite interesting in
that space. Your customer solution needs to
assume energy flowed one way, but now half your users have
solar panels that feedback to the grid.
You need to think about how thatworks.
You need to get familiar with the energy transition glossary,
(11:40):
like two way flows, bridge edge,virtual power plants.
They're not buzzwords. They're actually requirements
when it comes to designing the future.
Number six is that customers arefinally in the room.
So energy used to be provider centric.
(12:01):
Now it's about consumer choice, pricing transparency, usage
insights and even code generation, right.
So CX customer experience is no longer optional.
It's actually a differentiator. And my friend Dana Jacobson,
which we talked about, we've talked with with him before
(12:21):
about product management and listened to that episode.
If you haven't listened to it, he worked at Z Energy on a few
apps there. It's, it's really true that in a
market where there's a marketplace with players, lots
of different players, energy becomes a commodity good.
And the differentiator is the CX, the customer experience that
you provide and how easy it is to pay, you know, all the things
(12:45):
that annoy you. If they are dealt with by an
energy provider, you will generally stick with them.
You might have a mobile app thatlets users see real time energy
usage, pay bills and even sell surplus solar.
That's BA territory. Now we can we we're good at all
that stuff. So that's where the BA is adding
(13:05):
value to the traditional energy industry.
And ABA tip is to map the end toend customer journey.
Even if your work is on the backend, show how everything is
connected. So if you there's a modelling
tool called IDIF if you think about a process that just a
(13:29):
black box in the middle with which is the energy industry or
generating energy, above you might have the all the
regulatory things you have to worry about.
And then below this, you could just list those.
And then below that box you can list all the customer training
that requires you in order to deliver that, to cut the
customer touch points. That's probably you could just
(13:51):
do that on a full piece of paperand that can help.
There are really 2 main aspects that will help you when you
start modelling anything in the energy industry #7 is that
projects often span years. So grid upgrades, ERP
(14:11):
replacements, decarbonisation projects.
These are multi year, multi phase projects.
You need patience, documentation, discipline.
It's actually important to have some documentation because you
probably might not be around as you started the project, you
might not be the person who finishes it.
And strong traceability, OK, This is more important in the
(14:34):
industry, energy industry than it is in say, education.
You join, if you join like a smart meter, roll out the
context you need. It could be like buried in
SharePoint folders from 2019, you know when they first started
doing the audit and you know thecost benefit analysis. the BA
(14:54):
tip is to build continuity into artifacts, right?
So do things like vision controls and trying to archive
old material, but don't lose it.You know, these are the latest
solutions, things like that. Think if someone picks this up
in 12 months will they understand the why and what I
was trying to achieve? I've had projects before where
(15:18):
I've been rung up 10 years laterwhere people have said my names
on the document, they've found me on LinkedIn.
It's happened maybe 3 * 2 three times and they've asked me about
a project that I I rolled out. So it does matter and it does
show you that projects get picked up later if they're not
(15:38):
fully rolled out by the time youleave #8 is I guess health and
safety or safety and risk, they're non negotiable in the
industry, energy industry, therecan be a lot of moving parts and
like I said, a lot of hardware. And so risk is high.
(15:58):
Petrol companies, for example, and see the energy, we're very
hot on health and safety and mindfulness at at the station.
So when you fill up your gas at your gas station, you know how
people used to talk about the idea about a mobile phone and
how you know you shouldn't use your mobile phone at a petrol
(16:19):
station. Wow.
I can tell you this. I know that we've had
Mythbusters show that it's very unlikely that a mobile phone
will start a fire at at a petrolcompany station.
It's very unlikely that that will spark a fire.
The reason why you're told not to use your mobile phone at a
petrol station isn't about the risk of it blowing up the place.
(16:43):
It is actually the fact that it's a distraction.
And So what actually happens at a service station lots of times
is that people get hit by cars. And so if you're on your mobile
phone while you're filling up gas and you walk across the the
forecourt to go to the shop areawhere you want to pay, a lot of
people get hit by cars. And that's the reason why petrol
(17:04):
companies tell you not to use your cell phone on full court.
So you're often designing for high risk environments in the
energy industry. High voltage remote assets,
moving targets, field crews and your analysts can affect work
worker safety. I am risk reporting you need to
(17:29):
for example, let's say you're redesigning the job dispatch
screen for a lineman who fixes lines or in power lines.
If you are missing a check box, that could mean that someone is
in a live zone because you've missed out, you know, maybe a
check box about saying that's something.
This is a live target, hasn't the pitch, the energy hasn't
(17:51):
been turned off yet for that line.
So in terms of the BA tip here, always include health and safety
and operational risk and your stakeholder list always.
And their insights are essential.
So get them involved #9 you needto speak 2 languages, and the 2
(18:13):
languages here is business, the obvious one we speak and
engineering. So you find that engineers run a
lot of these energy generation places.
That's the way they operate. They're very black and white.
So BAS must bridge the gap between engineers who live in
this kind of different world andexecutives who care about
(18:35):
customer churn and return on investment.
Do you have the translator between kind of amps if you like
and accounts engineers wants an example here might be engineers
want to trial a voltage optimization algorithm for
example and you need to shape itinto a business case with clear
benefits and risks. I had an example here where I
(18:57):
was working at the Huntley is a place in New Zealand.
It's not, you know, known as theplace that everyone wants to
live in an industrial town between 2 main centres.
And that's where Genesis Energy had a coal plant where coal was
extracted and was also burnt there.
(19:18):
And I was working on an emissions project where Genesis
had to report on emissions. I did a lot of work at the
actual station and, and driving around to different parts of the
business and I worked with the guys who burnt the fuel and
figured out exactly what the issue was with the the
(19:39):
legislation that we had to report on.
So there was actually an issue with the legislation made it
very practically difficult to dothis reporting accurately, came
up with an algorithm and we presented our findings, but they
I would never have known that ifI hadn't gone right down to
literally the coal face to understand how that worked.
(20:01):
The Bill relationship with technical SMEs earlier, when I
say technical, I don't mean IT technical, I mean the people on
the ground generating or transmitting or fixing the
lines, then translate their logic into language that the
boardroom understands. And we were able to do that.
And actually the government understood that point.
(20:22):
And #10 is sustainability isn't a department, it's everywhere.
So having sustainability, sustainability goals are
embedded as part of the product OPS procurement strategy.
Every BA initiative needs to consider its environmental
impact because these, this industry has a micro, I guess, a
(20:45):
microscope on its operations to make sure it's not waste, it's
not wasting, it's sustainable because it's generating, you
know, carbon and affecting the environment.
So you find that there's more ofa focus on sustainability, say
for example, a procurement tool was looking at CO2 intensity,
(21:05):
right? And maybe it was in scoring it
as part of supplier evaluation. So we were going to only engage
with suppliers who had a great way of measuring this CO2 and we
wanted to work with someone who had efficient processes for
that. It would be, that would be
something that you would find inthe inner energy industry,
(21:27):
sorry, more so than maybe other areas now, OK, it's now.
Now you know, banking has it andall the rest of it because
banking's around choice. But you'll find that the
industry industry has more of that.
So what I would suggest is that you include sustainability
criteria in your problem statement and your solution
(21:47):
options. And it's not a nice to have in
the energy industry. So that's your high voltage BA
breakdown of the energy sector. It's a space where data is vast,
systems are old, and pressure tochange is real.
But it's also a sector where your analysis work can drive
(22:08):
massive national outcomes like clean up air, smarter energy use
and safer systems. And if you're up for a challenge
with real world impacts, energy is worth plugging into.
This has sparked something for you.
Share it with a fellow BA and subscribe for more practical
(22:29):
breakdowns across different industries.
And as always, keep asking better questions.
I'll see you next week.
Today we're switching on the lights.
Literally. I've worked in the energy sector
and let me tell you, it's a world of high stakes, heavy
regulation, health and safety, and massive transformation from
smart meters to grid upgrades todecarbonization targets.
(00:22):
Energy isn't just power lines and billing systems, it's a data
rich, politically charged, customer facing and deeply
technical space. So here are 10 hard truths and
helpful tips for any BA who's interested in working in the
energy sector. The Better Business Analysis
(00:43):
Institute presents the Better Business analysis podcast with
kingsburyn Walsh to the Better Business analysis podcast with
your host Benji Walsh. I have been, I'm well with the
flu for the last couple of weeks.
So thanks for joining me. This week.
(01:04):
We are talking about TNR truce when it comes to working in the
energy sector and the energy sector is quite large.
I've worked in the generation space, I've worked in the space
where we sell to consumers, which happened to be one
company, Genesis Energy as a contractor.
(01:24):
I also worked four company and license designs.
They had quite a few clients in the energy sector, including
Mighty River Power, which was a generator of hydropower and we
helped them with their billing system.
Separately to that, I worked at Z Energy both as a enterprise
(01:45):
business analyst and ABA Senior BA, working across some of the
asset stuff there and just generally putting together their
portfolio. So I have touched into a few
areas. There probably are the other
areas where I've worked where energy has been a focus area.
So today I'm going to talk about10 tips, which I think will help
(02:08):
you #1 is that it's critical infrastructure, OK?
Energy is an essential service. It's a commodity that we will
need. And failure isn't just an
outage. It can be a national issue.
Your systems affect homes and hospitals, transport the
(02:31):
vulnerable and industry of course.
And if you're an analyst doing some fault reporting for a grid
provider in New Zealand, that's transpower.
I know a lot of people work Algoritas managed by them.
Your work effects how fast line crews get dispatched after a
storm and that's a public safetyimpact and an an issue.
(02:53):
So it's quite important the workthat you do.
So I think that's the first point.
The tip there is that you shouldalways map your work to the
critical operations and energy. So that's your that's the key
outcome of value that you provide.
So what's the customer impact ofthis area failed?
(03:14):
I think that's the way to look at it in terms of something
special. Obviously, you can apply all the
other dimensions in the way thatyou look at things.
But for energy, it's ultimately about making sure that that
person has access to the energy and whatever format that is,
what channel that they need it. OK, so that's the critical part.
Number 2 is that what much like banking, which I haven't had
(03:37):
much to do apart from clients inbanking, is that the legacy
systems are deeply embedded. You'll find mainframes, ancient
asset registers, and brittle integrations, and your
transformation efforts often involve tiptoeing around 25 year
old systems still running close systems.
(03:59):
Now it's not good enough to pullthose out.
So I as opposed to other areas where you maybe focus on the
future state more. I always talk about that current
state analysis might actually bea requirement, deep requirement
here because you can't move peaksystem system.
And much like, I guess if you think about controllers,
(04:23):
hardware controllers. So the energy is like has a lot
of hardware involved in it with switching and whatnot.
And some of that, the programming that that that
allows that to happen is usuallyin lower level programming
languages like C, for example. And those systems are older,
they're reliable, they are highly regulated.
(04:45):
And so your systems, your newer systems which are written with
higher level programming languages, AKA things like web,
web work and web apps, they haveto talk to those systems.
And it's not, you can't just easily RIP out those hardware
based systems. So an example here is that your
new API platform needs to talk to a billing system built in,
(05:09):
say Cobalt, because it's it might read Cobalt was an old
programming language are still used and that Cobalt and C are
like this lower level language that is really good at talking
to hardware or Britain on the Commission critical systems.
And a lot of times those divisions are old.
They're retiring. There's only a few people that
(05:30):
know how the systems work. So that current standard
analysis you're almost doing an as built when you start that
sometimes isn't required. The tip here is that don't
promise same as integration OK without checking technical
reality. It is an area of integration
that's really important and always include those tech SMEs
(05:52):
in early discovery. It's, it's critical that you do
that. Number 3 is that acid data is a
mess, OK? And it matters a lot.
So from subsystems to Transformers to pulse energy,
businesses rely on what's knowing what they own, OK, where
they are in their condition. So I did a massive asset
(06:16):
management piece of work for Z Energy, which is a petroleum,
owns basically the main providerof petrol in New Zealand, as in
it has the national contract to the government.
So it's critical. We have BP, we have all the
others here, but Z Energy is specifically responsible for
keeping the network alive. And so you need to really know
(06:39):
what your assets are. And Windshell, which you might
know, was acquired by Infotel and then rebranded to the Energy
in New Zealand. Shell assets weren't in good
condition, so we had to do a huge asset order and put our
processes in place. So it was incomplete,
inconsistent information, duplicate records and we were
(07:00):
outsourcing the maintenance to other providers.
So we really need to do that from start.
That was one of my bigger projects when I first started at
Z. So your project to automate
maintenance schedules might stall because you don't actually
know where. I don't know, all the valves are
on a petrol station or we had examples where there was a lot
(07:25):
of the tanks that go underneath a petrol station were old and
needed to be replaced. We didn't really know the state
of them. Some of them actually went over
property lines to properties we don't know.
So there's a lot going on there.ABA tip there is to validate
your assumptions about the data early, including the asset data,
run the sample audits, talk to field OPS and I'll tell you
(07:47):
what's really missing. Or they'll tell you what they
don't know, which is just as important.
And that's risk. And that, you know, you need
time to resolve those problems. And it can be quite expensive to
find out where your assets actually are.
And that's sometimes needed #4 is that regulation?
And we've talked about this before in education, but this is
(08:08):
a different type of regulation. This is more like an education.
You have the kind of carrot whatyou're aiming for and energy,
energy industry regulation shapes everything but more from
a stick point of view is AKA if you don't do it, you're in
trouble. So regulatory compliance is
consistent and complex. Your pricing reviews, emission
(08:31):
targets, reliability standards, making sure you've not got a
monopoly sometimes and commodities you need to make
sure that you're not ripping people off the Commerce
Commission or the the governmentdepartment that make sure that
you're not price fixing and whatnot is all over you and the
industry industry. So your your analysis often
(08:55):
supports regulatory reporting and it needs to be ready for
audit, government audit, independent government audit.
An example might be a change to network reliability standards
means you need to update how outages are measured across 4
systems, for example. And BA tip might be always ask,
is this link to compliance obligation if yet?
(09:20):
If yes, prioritize clarity and transpirity over everything
else. OK, so you need to make sure
you've if this could be audited.So an external auditor is
looking at your work. Health and safety is the other
aspect in this industry that's quite hot #5 and this is
something I found at probably both Genesis and Z Energy is
(09:45):
that the transition to green energy is real and fast.
So yes, the world is currently changing politically at the
moment, but decarbonization is actually a live project and not
a future plan. So you'll find that seems
ironic, but the companies that may be responsible for more of
(10:09):
our greenhouse gas emissions or industries.
So energy producing of energy isgenerally has, you know, digging
for coal, which is what Genesis was doing, or seed energy, which
is importing fuel or refining fuel at the time when I was
there. You know, they are looking at,
(10:30):
there's a lot of pressure on them and they are looking at
ways in which to decarbonize what they do.
So when solar E VS Z bought, youknow, energy distribution
company Flick in order to do more stuff in E VS, they
invested in some other initiatives around that space
like biofuels. So the idea of disputed
(10:57):
generation solar, it's kind of up.
I guess it's flipping around howgrids are managed because that
grids, the whole grid, which is a huge infrastructure area is
managed to deal with, you know, basically major producers
producing electricity and it going a long way when you start
(11:17):
generating your own power at home, the grid has trouble
handling that. So it's quite interesting in
that space. Your customer solution needs to
assume energy flowed one way, but now half your users have
solar panels that feedback to the grid.
You need to think about how thatworks.
You need to get familiar with the energy transition glossary,
(11:40):
like two way flows, bridge edge,virtual power plants.
They're not buzzwords. They're actually requirements
when it comes to designing the future.
Number six is that customers arefinally in the room.
So energy used to be provider centric.
(12:01):
Now it's about consumer choice, pricing transparency, usage
insights and even code generation, right.
So CX customer experience is no longer optional.
It's actually a differentiator. And my friend Dana Jacobson,
which we talked about, we've talked with with him before
(12:21):
about product management and listened to that episode.
If you haven't listened to it, he worked at Z Energy on a few
apps there. It's, it's really true that in a
market where there's a marketplace with players, lots
of different players, energy becomes a commodity good.
And the differentiator is the CX, the customer experience that
you provide and how easy it is to pay, you know, all the things
(12:45):
that annoy you. If they are dealt with by an
energy provider, you will generally stick with them.
You might have a mobile app thatlets users see real time energy
usage, pay bills and even sell surplus solar.
That's BA territory. Now we can we we're good at all
that stuff. So that's where the BA is adding
(13:05):
value to the traditional energy industry.
And ABA tip is to map the end toend customer journey.
Even if your work is on the backend, show how everything is
connected. So if you there's a modelling
tool called IDIF if you think about a process that just a
(13:29):
black box in the middle with which is the energy industry or
generating energy, above you might have the all the
regulatory things you have to worry about.
And then below this, you could just list those.
And then below that box you can list all the customer training
that requires you in order to deliver that, to cut the
customer touch points. That's probably you could just
(13:51):
do that on a full piece of paperand that can help.
There are really 2 main aspects that will help you when you
start modelling anything in the energy industry #7 is that
projects often span years. So grid upgrades, ERP
(14:11):
replacements, decarbonisation projects.
These are multi year, multi phase projects.
You need patience, documentation, discipline.
It's actually important to have some documentation because you
probably might not be around as you started the project, you
might not be the person who finishes it.
And strong traceability, OK, This is more important in the
(14:34):
industry, energy industry than it is in say, education.
You join, if you join like a smart meter, roll out the
context you need. It could be like buried in
SharePoint folders from 2019, you know when they first started
doing the audit and you know thecost benefit analysis. the BA
(14:54):
tip is to build continuity into artifacts, right?
So do things like vision controls and trying to archive
old material, but don't lose it.You know, these are the latest
solutions, things like that. Think if someone picks this up
in 12 months will they understand the why and what I
was trying to achieve? I've had projects before where
(15:18):
I've been rung up 10 years laterwhere people have said my names
on the document, they've found me on LinkedIn.
It's happened maybe 3 * 2 three times and they've asked me about
a project that I I rolled out. So it does matter and it does
show you that projects get picked up later if they're not
(15:38):
fully rolled out by the time youleave #8 is I guess health and
safety or safety and risk, they're non negotiable in the
industry, energy industry, therecan be a lot of moving parts and
like I said, a lot of hardware. And so risk is high.
(15:58):
Petrol companies, for example, and see the energy, we're very
hot on health and safety and mindfulness at at the station.
So when you fill up your gas at your gas station, you know how
people used to talk about the idea about a mobile phone and
how you know you shouldn't use your mobile phone at a petrol
(16:19):
station. Wow.
I can tell you this. I know that we've had
Mythbusters show that it's very unlikely that a mobile phone
will start a fire at at a petrolcompany station.
It's very unlikely that that will spark a fire.
The reason why you're told not to use your mobile phone at a
petrol station isn't about the risk of it blowing up the place.
(16:43):
It is actually the fact that it's a distraction.
And So what actually happens at a service station lots of times
is that people get hit by cars. And so if you're on your mobile
phone while you're filling up gas and you walk across the the
forecourt to go to the shop areawhere you want to pay, a lot of
people get hit by cars. And that's the reason why petrol
(17:04):
companies tell you not to use your cell phone on full court.
So you're often designing for high risk environments in the
energy industry. High voltage remote assets,
moving targets, field crews and your analysts can affect work
worker safety. I am risk reporting you need to
(17:29):
for example, let's say you're redesigning the job dispatch
screen for a lineman who fixes lines or in power lines.
If you are missing a check box, that could mean that someone is
in a live zone because you've missed out, you know, maybe a
check box about saying that's something.
This is a live target, hasn't the pitch, the energy hasn't
(17:51):
been turned off yet for that line.
So in terms of the BA tip here, always include health and safety
and operational risk and your stakeholder list always.
And their insights are essential.
So get them involved #9 you needto speak 2 languages, and the 2
(18:13):
languages here is business, the obvious one we speak and
engineering. So you find that engineers run a
lot of these energy generation places.
That's the way they operate. They're very black and white.
So BAS must bridge the gap between engineers who live in
this kind of different world andexecutives who care about
(18:35):
customer churn and return on investment.
Do you have the translator between kind of amps if you like
and accounts engineers wants an example here might be engineers
want to trial a voltage optimization algorithm for
example and you need to shape itinto a business case with clear
benefits and risks. I had an example here where I
(18:57):
was working at the Huntley is a place in New Zealand.
It's not, you know, known as theplace that everyone wants to
live in an industrial town between 2 main centres.
And that's where Genesis Energy had a coal plant where coal was
extracted and was also burnt there.
(19:18):
And I was working on an emissions project where Genesis
had to report on emissions. I did a lot of work at the
actual station and, and driving around to different parts of the
business and I worked with the guys who burnt the fuel and
figured out exactly what the issue was with the the
(19:39):
legislation that we had to report on.
So there was actually an issue with the legislation made it
very practically difficult to dothis reporting accurately, came
up with an algorithm and we presented our findings, but they
I would never have known that ifI hadn't gone right down to
literally the coal face to understand how that worked.
(20:01):
The Bill relationship with technical SMEs earlier, when I
say technical, I don't mean IT technical, I mean the people on
the ground generating or transmitting or fixing the
lines, then translate their logic into language that the
boardroom understands. And we were able to do that.
And actually the government understood that point.
(20:22):
And #10 is sustainability isn't a department, it's everywhere.
So having sustainability, sustainability goals are
embedded as part of the product OPS procurement strategy.
Every BA initiative needs to consider its environmental
impact because these, this industry has a micro, I guess, a
(20:45):
microscope on its operations to make sure it's not waste, it's
not wasting, it's sustainable because it's generating, you
know, carbon and affecting the environment.
So you find that there's more ofa focus on sustainability, say
for example, a procurement tool was looking at CO2 intensity,
(21:05):
right? And maybe it was in scoring it
as part of supplier evaluation. So we were going to only engage
with suppliers who had a great way of measuring this CO2 and we
wanted to work with someone who had efficient processes for
that. It would be, that would be
something that you would find inthe inner energy industry,
(21:27):
sorry, more so than maybe other areas now, OK, it's now.
Now you know, banking has it andall the rest of it because
banking's around choice. But you'll find that the
industry industry has more of that.
So what I would suggest is that you include sustainability
criteria in your problem statement and your solution
(21:47):
options. And it's not a nice to have in
the energy industry. So that's your high voltage BA
breakdown of the energy sector. It's a space where data is vast,
systems are old, and pressure tochange is real.
But it's also a sector where your analysis work can drive
(22:08):
massive national outcomes like clean up air, smarter energy use
and safer systems. And if you're up for a challenge
with real world impacts, energy is worth plugging into.
This has sparked something for you.
Share it with a fellow BA and subscribe for more practical
(22:29):
breakdowns across different industries.
And as always, keep asking better questions.
I'll see you next week.
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