Overview

In this action, best practices developed throughout the TRN will be institutionalized to create a resilience-focused organizational culture. Execution plans associated with priority projects will be implemented and areas for additional iteration will be identified.

In-Depth

The purpose of this activity is to integrate best practices to form a resilience-focused organizational culture. Lessons learned throughout the TRN process can be institutionalized to orient staff around a common goal and mission. Monitoring of implementation of projects via the execution plans is also important to ensure that the resilience gaps stay closed. Finally, documenting and communicating successful project implementation will help other organizations complete this process, prevent future duplicated efforts, and aid new staff in getting up to speed on past efforts. Offline users can use the Roadmap to Action Action 5 worksheet as a checklist for maintaining stakeholder engagement in the resilience process and iteration for continual site improvement.

Implementation

By completing the TRN process, the resilience planning team is now poised to implement the projects that were prioritized for action and approved by leadership. As projects move forward, the role of the resilience planning team will change. Individual projects may become the responsibility of other departments and have new leadership and championship beyond those who identified and promoted the initial project. The resilience planning team should regularly ensure that the impacts of implemented resilience projects are incorporated into the TRN. If an implemented project reduced the potential consequences or vulnerabilities associated with a hazard scenario, this should be incorporated into the next TRN iteration.

Post Implementation Management

Once resilience projects are in place, there are still important actions to take to ensure that assets are performing and delivering desired outcomes. Effective operations and maintenance (O&M) programs are one of the most cost-effective methods for ensuring reliability, safety, and energy efficiency. Good maintenance practices can ensure that assets will perform when called on in emergencies, and improvements to facility maintenance programs can often be at a relatively low cost. In the context of the TRN risk screening, the lack of well maintained energy and water systems that support critical loads without documented process and testing results creates vulnerabilities. To ensure that projects enhance the resilience of a site’s energy and water systems and do not create new vulnerabilities, the resilience planning team should ensure that the correct points of contact develop and implement an O&M plan and ensure that they have adequate resources to execute the plan.

TRN Iteration

The TRN, like other energy management methods, is a continuous improvement tool. Iteration on the scope of the analysis, priorities, risk analysis, and the TRN outputs, such as the list of risk-informed resilience-enhancing solutions and resulting projects, is recommended to ensure that an organization is continuously working to enhance resilience.

Planning for resilience is a continuous process. As conditions change, systems age, or new risk drivers emerge, the context for identifying and prioritizing solutions will also shift. However, resilience planning is not strictly cyclical―efforts should be made to embed risk and resilience considerations into the everyday and routine planning, budgeting, and management processes of an organization. Incorporating risk considerations in all capital expenditures, for example, will reap significant resilience dividends over time. While it is prudent to regularly reevaluate risk and system vulnerability, the resilience planning team can also consider mapping where within their organizational processes there is an opportunity to integrate risk and resilience elements in a more streamlined and ongoing fashion.

As a start, the resilience planning team can meet to determine a timeframe for iteration on the TRN. By updating the critical loads and reassessing risk on a recurring basis, including incorporating reductions in risk from implemented resilience solutions, the resilience planning team can ensure progress towards enhancing the resilience of their energy and water systems.

Institutionalization

Because resilience planning tends to be a continuous improvement process, institutionalization of resilience into decision making and overall planning is key. The members of the resilience planning team have developed a large and important body of resilience expertise and knowledge. Leveraging this expertise can build additional recognition of the value of resilience across systems and operations. Results of the TRN process can be used to help build resilience into decision making and overall planning, thereby contributing to the institutionalization of resilience at a site. Institutionalization of resilience planning into an organization has many facets and will be a process over time. The resilience planning team can start this process by documenting lessons learned, disseminating results of the TRN process, and further integrating stakeholders and tangential efforts.

Lessons learned from both the TRN process and the TRN results should be documented for the next iteration. Lessons learned can span a wide range of topics including data collection considerations, stakeholder involvement, site nuances, analysis scope, and more. These lessons can contribute to a more streamlined and effective iteration for the next version. The individual projects developed through the TRN serve as important case studies for those who are not sure what value resilience planning can bring to the organization. A discrete project that ties back to a resilience priority, risk driver, and critical function can be a meaningful embodiment of larger resilience posture enhancement, and the resilience planning team should be sure to regularly update staff and leadership on successes and learn from what is not effective.

The resilience planning team can consider dissemination of TRN goals, processes, and outcomes, as appropriate, to educate stakeholders on resilience planning exercises. The TRN Resource: Business Justification Presentation can serve as a foundation for collecting and disseminating results. As with all TRN data management, the resilience planning team should seek guidance from designated information security personnel before accumulating potentially sensitive information.

No-cost and low-cost investments in staff professional development can develop invaluable resources in the organization and greatly help with the institutionalization of resilience with staff. FEMP offers a variety of training topics for novice and experienced staff. The FEMP Training Catalog features online and on-site training and educational events that are federally focused, but not federally exclusive, and include trainings focused on the TRN.

As projects progress and a plan for TRN iteration is developed, it can be beneficial to transition the ‘planning team’ to a designation more fitting with other management or teaming structures within the organization. Look for other groups that are charged with similar guidance, oversight, or advisory functions that serve as potential models across departments or organization-wide. As the function of the group changes, it is a good time to reevaluate how often it convenes, whether those meetings occur at regular intervals or triggered by specific programmatic needs, or if there are new perspectives that need to be added.

Conclusion

Resilience is not a new concept, but for the energy and water management community it places a larger emphasis on supporting mission requirements than past initiatives may have. While this introduces new challenges, it also garners wider support from leadership for energy and water infrastructure enhancements.

It is important to remember that the TRN addresses the resilience of backup energy and water systems that support critical loads, and that a site may want to consider a broader scope in its next TRN iteration. The assessment and analysis that was developed over the course of the process can be easily integrated into a larger, more holistic resilience development program. The resilience planning team may also have identified additional dependencies among other systems, such as cyber, communications, and transportation infrastructure, and linkages to other organization goals such as climate mitigation, that can serve as the foundation for additional assessment and analysis.