Case Study: Spire

I performed contextual inquiry research Interviews with two employees at the firm which resulted in massive time-saving.

Client

Spire (Major Utility Company)

Overview

Spire, a natural gas company with 1.7M customers, is moving to smart gas meter technology. With a lot more data gathered, the company wants to apply decision science to that data to gain valuable business insights. They needed a partner to help them build a roadmap to achieve the advanced decision science capabilities they want. 

Client Need

The client needed to understand the following:

  • The scope of how the software was being used day-to-day.

  • The scope of how the software was being used internally.

Key Strategies Implemented

Discovery 
Contextual Inquiry Research,

Delivery 
this

Outcomes

Assessed their current environment and mapped Spire’s desired state to a data maturity model, including decision science and data engineering capabilities

  • Analyzed current technology and skill sets to determine gaps 

  • Built a roadmap to give Spire an actionable plan from where they are today to the advanced state they want to achieve

The roadmap will give Spire a step-by-step plan to achieve their decision science goals including: 

  • Better customer service with real-time analytics 

  • Lower operational costs with remote and automated capabilities

  • More accurate forecasting and proactive system planning

Original Process

  1. Download a large PDF of a spreadsheet from the software

  2. Print the PDF

  3. Open Excel

  4. Use a ruler and pencil to define the line being worked

  5. Enter the information from the line into the Excel document

  6. Repeat until all PDF information has been entered into the spreadsheet

  7. Begin analysis

They did this, line-by-line, keying in all of the information, for two weeks per month. During the interview I learned that their co-worker also did this for two weeks every month. 160 hours per week were spent manually entering the information from the PDF of a spreadsheet. Once they had the spreadsheet keyed in, they spent the next two weeks actually doing the analysis for which they were hired. I wrote these findings in a brief report, and added a story to the backlog to make an Excel or CSV file available to these Users. It was a quick fix, which was implemented the next sprint.

The new process is:

Process 2_1.pngNew Process

  1. Download a large CSV file

  2. Open it in Excel

  3. Begin analysis

The Client Said…

“Martha is extremely detail-oriented and takes pride in everything she delivers. She is passionate about providing the users with the best experience possible. She understands what the customer wants and needs and is a great liaison between the clients, the design they desire, and the developmental discipline that the clients don't quite understand themselves. Martha is also a very hard worker and willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done and we appreciated all her hard work to assist us in reaching our goals.”

Senior IT Program Project Manager

Managed Martha Directly