Every Engagement Should Build on the Last

By Rebecca Payne, Vice President, Director of Utility Financial Consulting

Organizations engage experts to answer questions. The most successful organizations do something more. They learn how to leverage expertise.Technical expertise solves problems, performs analyses, and evaluates alternatives. But expertise creates the greatest value when each engagement builds upon the knowledge gained from the last.

Over time, experience changes the questions. Assumptions become clearer. Tradeoffs become easier to recognize. Organizations develop a deeper understanding of the factors influencing their decisions and become better equipped to apply recommendations within the unique circumstances of their organization.

That search for understanding helps explain the continued interest in Guernsey’s Cost of Service and Rate Design seminars. Following two sold-out seminars earlier this year, two additional seminars will be offered later this year in partnership with state associations. The goal is not to turn participants into rate designers. It is to help cooperative CEOs and General Managers, CFOs, Member Services professionals, finance teams, operations teams and others understand the assumptions, tradeoffs, and implications behind the recommendations.

The same lesson appears across disciplines. Broadband expansion projects involve more than construction schedules. Facility studies involve more than buildings. Arc Flash studies involve more than compliance. Experience helps organizations understand how individual decisions connect to larger objectives.

Technical expertise provides answers. Experience provides perspective.

How Organizations Leverage Expertise

Most cooperative leaders do not attend Cost of Service and Rate Design seminars because they want to become rate analysts. They attend because they want to understand the thinking behind the recommendations. Understanding the assumptions behind the answer allows leaders to ask better questions, explain decisions more effectively, and adapt when conditions change.

The goal is not technical mastery. The goal is better judgment.

That same principle helps explain why long-term relationships matter. The first Cost of Service study answers important questions about revenue requirements, cost allocation, and rate design. By the third study, conversations are different. Less time is spent recreating history and more time is spent discussing strategy. Previous assumptions are understood. Historical decisions are remembered. Lessons learned are not lost.

Over time, electric cooperatives change. New board members arrive. Executive teams evolve. Strategic priorities shift. Technologies that barely existed a decade ago become important considerations. Electric vehicles, distributed energy resources, broadband investments, and changing load profiles all influence the questions leaders must answer. A Cost of Service study provides structure for those discussions and helps organizations evaluate changing conditions without losing sight of long-term objectives.

Shared experience creates context, and context improves decisions. Organizations that leverage expertise effectively do not view each engagement as an isolated transaction. They expect each project, study, and assessment to make the next one more valuable.

Because every engagement should build on the last.

The Problems Change. Context Remains.

Organizations evolve. Problems evolve. Priorities evolve.

The context surrounding those decisions should not have to start over each time.

A Cost of Service study that once focused primarily on recovering costs from standard residential and commercial members may later involve demand side management, large load rate designs, or how changing member behavior affects rate design. The questions evolve, but the historical context built over time helps organizations understand why earlier decisions were made, what assumptions shaped those decisions, and how conditions have changed.

That continuity has value.

Board members change. Executive teams change. Strategic priorities change. Relationships that preserve context help organizations spend less time recreating history and more time evaluating the future. Shared experience creates context, and context improves decisions because it allows organizations to build upon what they have already learned rather than repeatedly rediscovering it.

The same principle applies throughout the organization. Problems that appear unrelated often influence one another in unexpected ways. Broadband initiatives affect financial forecasts. Large loads influence power supply decisions and long-term investments. Facility decisions shape operations, restoration efforts, and future growth. What begins as a technical issue often becomes an operational issue, a financial issue, or a strategic issue.

Experience does not eliminate change. It helps organizations adapt to it.

National Perspective Creates Leverage

Organizations do not typically seek outside expertise because they lack internal capability. Many electric cooperatives operate lean by design, with leadership teams focused on reliability, member service, and long-term planning. Outside expertise often provides additional capacity, independent perspectives, and lessons developed through repeated exposure to similar challenges.Working with cooperatives across the country creates opportunities to observe emerging issues, alternative approaches, and unintended consequences that may not yet be visible within a single organization. Repeated exposure reveals patterns. Perspective broadens options, experience compresses learning, and expertise creates leverage.

This year Guernsey’s team is working on projects for 209 electric cooperatives across 29 states. Although the projects differed, the underlying lesson remained remarkably consistent: organizations derive greater value when each engagement builds upon the last.

Looking Ahead

The most valuable consulting relationships are not measured by a single project. They are measured by what each engagement makes possible next.

Arc Flash studies provide one example. A study establishes a baseline, but systems do not remain static. Fault current changes. Relay settings change. Distributed energy resources grow. Over time, organizations must determine whether yesterday’s assumptions still reflect today’s conditions. Experience gained across many systems and operating environments helps organizations recognize risks before they become incidents.

Broadband projects provide another example. Environmental compliance requirements are often viewed as permitting exercises, but experienced teams understand they are schedule issues. Early planning, agency coordination, and alignment between environmental reviews and engineering schedules help maintain project momentum and prevent delays. Lessons learned on one project help organizations avoid repeating problems on the next.

Facility planning follows a similar path. Most cooperatives apply disciplined planning to poles and substations while operational facilities receive attention only when problems become unavoidable. Over time, organizations recognize that facilities are capital assets that influence borrowing flexibility, restoration performance, growth, and member service. Operational facilities either enter the capital plan by design or by failure.

At their best, long-term relationships do more than solve problems. They preserve context, compound knowledge, and make future decisions more informed than the last.

Technical expertise remains essential. Organizations need specialists who can solve complex problems, perform analyses, and provide sound recommendations. But the greatest value rarely comes from a single answer.

It comes from what each answer makes possible next.

Because technical expertise provides answers.

Experience provides perspective.

And every engagement should build on the last.

About the Author
Rebecca Payne serves as Vice President and Director of Utility Financial Consulting at Guernsey. Her team supports electric cooperatives across the country with Cost of Service and Rate Design studies, financial forecasting, broadband evaluations, and other analytical services.