Outage management rebuilt during storm season
You cannot ask a utility to have a quiet year.
The program
| Sector | Utilities |
|---|---|
| System age | 17 years |
| Scope | Outage management rebuild, phased behind a facade |
| Constraint | No change freeze available at any point |
| Duration | 19 months |
| Status | Complete. Wall map retired |
The control room trusted the illuminated wall map more than the screens, and had done for years. That was not superstition. The map had never been wrong, and the screens had, twice, memorably, during events people still referred to by year.
Rebuilding an outage management system while the season runs means you never get a moment where everyone agrees to look away. So nothing was ever cut over. Capability moved behind the existing interface, one at a time, and the room's habits did not have to change on any particular day. The third and fourth releases went out without anybody in the control room noticing, which was the review.
Two weeks were agreed at the start as a hard freeze, written into the plan before anybody knew which two weeks would matter. When the season arrived and there was a very good reason to break the freeze, the freeze held — because arguing it once in month one is cheap and arguing it in the middle of an event is not.
The map stayed lit for eleven months after the new system was carrying everything. It came down when the room stopped looking at it, not when we said it could.
The control room did not notice the third and fourth releases. That was the review.
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— Tobias Renke, Principal, Modernization
The map goes dark
The wall map is unlit now and the desk below it carries the work. The reversal took eleven months longer than the technology needed, which was the correct amount of time.
