Sector Highlights: Energy

I have been reflecting on my experience working in the Energy sector, one of the most complex, regulated and rapidly evolving industries in Australia. 

Operating under intense regulation, cost-of-living pressure and public scrutiny, energy organisations must deliver reliable, affordable services while enabling the energy transition, evolving markets like EV and distributed energy, and national decarbonisation commitments. 

In my experience, technical or regulatory constraints are not the only ones impacting value delivery. Legacy operating models, organisational silos, slow decision-making, and limited experimentation capability all limit pace and innovation. 

Energy organisations are being asked to deliver value faster, modernise technology, enable the rapidly evolving markets (such as EVs and distributed energy) and contribute to the national decarbonisation commitments, while navigating state-based regulations, national market rules and complex external ecosystems including regulators, vendors, and energy producers etc.

The key shifts I have noticed are:

Key highlights of the work I have done in the sector include:

• Establishing clearer outcomes and accountability across value streams, enabling and safety teams, reducing friction and creating focus on value delivery

• Redesigning governance and portfolio cadences, improving transparency, shared understanding and enabling faster, better informed decisions and trade-offs

• Working with leaders and teams to build product and experimentation capability, increasing speed to design, test and deliver value to customers

• Streamlining the quarterly planning process for value streams, enabling better collaboration, transparency and alignment on outcomes

  
  

Key learnings, as shown below, are as relevant to other industries as the energy sector:

These insights clearly reinforce that in order to enable better value, sooner, safer and happier, ways of working must evolve to balance customer value, regulation and innovation