Northpower: Enabling faster delivery through a new operating model
Northpower partnered with Radically to redesign how it would deliver its Asset Management Transformation programme, a critical, multi-year initiative supporting the future of its electricity network.
By bringing leaders closer to delivery, strengthening collaboration and establishing new ways of working, Northpower has accelerated progress and built greater confidence in its ability to deliver complex change.
OVERVIEW
Northpower is a consumer-owned electricity distribution business serving more than 63,000 customers across the Whangārei and Kaipara districts. Its network spans approximately 6,200 kilometres and includes 23 substations, providing essential electricity infrastructure across the region. Much of this infrastructure dates back to the 1960s and 1970s and is approaching the end of its design life.
To address this, Northpower established its Asset Management Transformation (AMT) programme to fundamentally change how it manages, maintains and invests in its network. This includes replacing its ageing asset management system with modern technology and data models, shifting from repairing assets as they fail to proactively anticipating maintenance needs, informing investment decisions and improving long-term network reliability.
To support this complex, multi-year transformation, Northpower partnered with Radically to redesign how the programme was organised and delivered.
THE CHALLENGE
Replacing Northpower’s asset management system was a complex undertaking, requiring specialist expertise from across the organisation while balancing the demands of day-to-day operations and other major investment initiatives.
Northpower’s approach to project delivery had largely been designed for more traditional programmes. For AMT, however, the work was highly interdependent and needed input from people across asset management, technology, data and other parts of the business.
These structures made collaboration difficult. Teams could become separated by functional boundaries, decisions could take time to move through the organisation, and issues were not always resolved at the speed the programme required.
The scale and uncertainty of the work also made extensive upfront planning less effective. Northpower needed a delivery approach that could provide clear direction while allowing teams to learn, adapt and make decisions as the programme developed.
The challenge was therefore not simply implementing a new system. It was creating a way of working that could support a complex transformation programme while building stronger delivery capability within Northpower itself.
THE APPROACH
Radically began by engaging key people across the programme to understand Northpower’s delivery challenges, existing capabilities and current ways of working.
From there, Radically worked with Northpower to redesign the programme’s operating model. The approach was guided by a few practical principles, including organising teams logically around the work, bringing together the capabilities needed to deliver end-to-end and keeping governance as simple as possible.
The work included:
- Redesigning the programme’s delivery model so teams were structured around the work that needed to be delivered, with clearer roles, responsibilities and connections across the programme.
- Simplifying governance and decision-making by reducing unnecessary layers and creating clearer pathways for issues and decisions to be resolved.
- Bringing senior leaders closer to delivery by involving them directly in delivery streams, giving teams faster access to the people needed to remove barriers and make decisions.
- Introducing more iterative ways of working so teams could make progress in shorter cycles, learn as the programme developed and adjust their approach rather than attempting to define everything upfront.
- Establishing new delivery rhythms including regular meeting cadences, showcases and Big Room Planning to improve alignment, visibility and coordination across teams.
- Building capability within Northpower through coaching and hands-on support, helping leaders and teams develop the confidence to lead the new approach themselves.
Building Northpower’s own capability was an important part of the engagement. Radically provided significant guidance during the first Big Room Planning session, but by the second, Northpower was leading the process itself and planning its own work for the next 90 days.
Regular showcases were also established every two to three weeks, giving teams an opportunity to share what had been delivered, discuss learnings and maintain visibility across the programme.
Throughout the engagement, Radically adapted its approach to Northpower’s context rather than imposing a rigid methodology. The aim was not simply to introduce new processes, but to establish a delivery model Northpower could confidently lead and sustain itself.
OUTCOMES
Northpower is now seeing tangible progress across its transformation programme, with faster delivery, clearer accountability and stronger decision-making.
Craig Grant, Northpower's Head of Network Digital and AMT Ways of Working Lead, estimates that Radically helped the organisation achieve in just one to two months what might otherwise have taken around six.
The engagement has helped Northpower establish:
- Accelerated delivery with teams better able to resolve issues, maintain momentum and progress work more quickly.
- Faster decision-making by bringing senior leaders closer to delivery and giving teams quicker access to the people needed to remove barriers.
- Stronger collaboration through clearer structures and more consistent ways of working across traditional team boundaries.
- Greater delivery flexibility with teams making decisions sooner, learning as they go and adapting as the programme develops.
- Greater internal capability with Northpower increasingly leading its own planning and delivery processes.
The impact is also beginning to extend beyond the immediate programme, with people across Northpower adopting the new ways of working and sharing ideas more openly.
Although the transformation is ongoing, Northpower is already seeing improvements in delivery speed and tangible results. It is also building the internal capability to sustain these improvements, strengthening its ability to respond to changing network demands and deliver long-term value to the communities it serves.
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