Making the workings of the PSAC more transparent

In late 2015, the membership of the WITS Protocol Standards Association (PSA) suggested that having more visibility of what the Protocol Standards Association Committee (PSAC) is doing would be good. In reply to this request, the Strategy Group of the PSAC did the following:

  • Determine what the strategy objectives of the PSA should be. What objectives should the PSA have to ensure continued adoption of the protocol and greater penetration into the Master Station and Field Device market?
  • Reviewed those strategy objectives with the wider PSAC.
  • Created Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) against each of the strategy objectives so that progress against the strategy objective could be measured.
  • Presented these strategy objectives and KPIs at the WITS Expo in October 2016.
  • Completed the creation of a strategy KPI sheet in which information could be collected and a public version of the sheet for wider dissemination.

We are now ready to publish strategy objective and KPI data to the WITS PSA membership every month. It is now our intention to publish the full Strategy and KPI spreadsheet to the WITS PSAC area of the website and the public version of that sheet, as a PDF, to the WITS PSA member’s area of the website. We expect to do this monthly near the beginning of each month as data is collected. The first versions of these sheets which cover up to and including May 2017 are now available in the WITS PSAC and WITS PSA member areas of the website. If you are a WITS PSA member this link should get you to the PDF version of the spreadsheet.

For the first few months of doing this, we will also send out emails to WITS PSA members reminding them that the Strategy and KPIs sheet is available. Following that it will become a matter of members checking the member’s area of the website if they wish to track progress.

Of what use is this information to me?

You may be asking, why do I need to see this information, what use is it to me and what would I use it for? The following are some of the major reasons we think this is a good idea:

  • You can see the strategy objectives which are driving our behaviour.
  • You can see how we are measuring ourselves against those strategy objectives.
  • You can see graphs of how well we are doing for various of the KPIs.
  • It makes open the workings of the PSAC.
  • It allows members to see what their membership fees are being used for.

Most importantly for the WITS PSAC it allows WITS PSA members to feedback what they think is right or wrong about our approach and how they think we could improve it. Remember that the PSAC are only voluntary voted WITS PSA members but that the WITS PSA is run for the benefit of all members.

What plans do you have for the future?

None of the strategy objectives or KPIs are set in stone. As the market conditions change or new legislation introduces new requirements for the Water Industry, these should cause changes to the strategy objectives and KPIs. So, over the coming years we would expect to see the objectives and KPIs change as user requests are forthcoming. Those changes would be guided by the WITS PSAC Strategy Group. Like many of our working groups, this is not a closed shop and we encourage members to become involved in such groups, attending meetings or tele-conferences. Remember that later this year, you will have your own chance to get voted onto the WITS PSAC, as every two years we re-elect members of the PSAC, and our two years are nearly up!

Currently the WITS PSAC have decided to publish the full spreadsheet to the PSAC only and the PDF version to the WITS PSA members. Under discussion at the moment are whether the full spreadsheet should be published to all PSA members and the PDF version should actually be published openly on the website to anyone who wants to read it. Your thoughts on that would be most welcome and you would have a chance to have them heard at the upcoming WITS PSAC face to face meeting in early July. If you are interested in this, please contact the Secretary to discuss further.

Mark Davison, Terzo Digital, WITS PSAC Member, June 2017