Embedded Maximo data leadership and development for a UK gas distribution network
A specialist Maximo data lead and developer embedded inside the client's own team and governance, in a regulated network with no programme window. This engagement has run for years, so we start with the three things we would set up differently if it started tomorrow.
Where this page starts
With the lessons, not the outcomes. On an engagement with no go-live date, the set-up decisions in the first fortnight are the whole story.
Start here: what we would do differently
Three set-up decisions we would insist on in the first fortnight
This engagement has run for years and the capability transfer worked. These framing decisions are made in week one or not at all.
Name the internal data owner on day one
The standard was written first and internal ownership settled later, leaving a period where the most authoritative view sat with an embedded specialist. Naming that internal role is now a condition of starting.
Sequence remediation by reporting obligation
It is natural to start where the data looks worst. It is more useful to start with the asset classes that feed the regulatory return. We would now let the obligation set the order and treat the quality score as a tie-break.
Write down what done looks like for knowledge transfer
Pairing worked, but knowledge transfer was a practice rather than a specification. We would now write the unaided capability test at mobilisation and review it quarterly.
Two purchases that look identical on a purchase order
What buying bandwidth gets you, and what buying capability gets you
This distinction decided how the engagement was set up. Getting it wrong is why augmentation has a poor reputation in regulated organisations.
Buying bandwidth
A seat is filled. Throughput goes up while the seat is occupied.
Buying capability
An outcome is owned inside your governance, and something is left behind when the seat empties.
What is being bought
Hours against a backlog, priced per day.
A documented data standard, a measurable reduction in inconsistency, and an internal owner able to carry it on.
Where the work sits
A supplier workstream with its own plan.
Inside the client's standups, change control and architecture board.
Route to production
A separate approval path the internal team then has to police.
The existing change process, with no supplier exception.
The test at the end
Were the hours delivered and the tickets closed.
Can the client maintain and extend the platform without us.
The constraint that shaped everything
A regulated network where business as usual wins, and no programme window exists.
Every change competes with operational activity for the same approval gates. Asset data sits close to the safety case and the regulatory return, so remediation had to be incremental, reversible and traceable through the client’s own change control.
The working method
Six practices, and what each one rules out
There is no cutover in this story. Cite M1-M6 when you want the method rather than the outcomes.
| Ref | Practice | What it means in the week | What it rules out |
|---|---|---|---|
| M1 | Join their ceremonies | Both roles work inside the client’s standups, change control and architecture board. | A parallel supplier workstream that creates a second change queue. |
| M2 | Baseline before proposing | Wrote where classifications diverged, hierarchies drifted and criticality had never been revisited. | Arguing about data quality in the abstract. |
| M3 | Write the standard first | Definitions for classification, hierarchy and criticality, signed by asset management. | Remediation without a standard, which has to be redone when the next view arrives. |
| M4 | Small, reversible, through their gates | Remediation and enhancements as individually reversible changes through existing change control, class by class. | An estate-wide reclassification. |
| M5 | Pair on everything significant | Data lead with asset data owners; developer with internal developers. | Becoming indispensable. |
| M6 | Hand the standard to a person | Named internal role owns the standard; MaxIron advises. | A document without an owner, which erodes over about a year. |
The same reporting request, two ways
What changed when a regulatory question arrived
Nothing about this engagement was visible as a launch. It was visible here.
Before
Extract, reconcile, apply judgement
- 1
The request
A reporting obligation requires asset data across a class of the network.
- 2
The work
Extract, then reconcile inconsistent classifications by hand.
- 3
The judgement
An analyst makes a defensible call from knowledge that is not written anywhere.
- 4
The exposure
Explaining why the answer is right depends on the analyst still being there.
After
A defined field and a documented definition
- 1
The request
Unchanged. Obligations do not get easier.
- 2
The work
Classification is consistent across the class, so extraction is extraction.
- 3
The judgement
The definition is written down and owned by asset management.
- 4
The exposure
The answer can be explained from the standard, including to an auditor.
Data quality work is hard to show in a demonstration. This is where a regulated buyer feels it.
Where the two roles sit
Embedded inside the client’s governance
No new tooling. The client already had change control, a service toolchain and an architecture board. The Maximo data lead and developer sit inside that, feeding regulatory reporting and asset data quality.
What the diagram shows
- Client Maximo team
- BAU operations, change control and architecture board remain the gates every change passes.
- MaxIron embedded
- Data lead on standards, classifications, criticality and hierarchies; developer on enhancements and integrations.
- Outputs
- Ofgem-aligned regulatory feeds and auditable asset data quality across remediated classes.
What the engagement left behind
Deliverables and outcomes, as the operator holds them
What the two roles produced
- Data standard
- Written definitions for classification, hierarchy and criticality, owned by asset management
- Governance
- Baseline of self-contradiction, then class-by-class remediation against the standard
- Development
- Enhancements, configuration, troubleshooting and enterprise integrations
- Migration support
- Extraction, mapping and loading with integrity checks for regulatory data
What improved
- Definitions
- Owned documents rather than shared understanding among whoever is in post
- Capacity
- Faster platform improvements at a cadence production can absorb
- Reporting
- Greater confidence in fields that feed regulatory and operational returns
- Capability
- Internal team able to maintain and extend the platform without us
Anonymised. Client-identifying systems and naming removed. Platform upgrade deliberately out of scope.
The arrangement, in facts
- Sector
- Gas distribution & utilities
- Region
- United Kingdom
- Duration
- Multi-year embedded engagement
- Scope
- Data governance, development, integration
- Versions
- IBM Maximo
If your asset data has to satisfy a regulator
Services and products in this engagement
What buyers ask about embedded specialists
- Why is the network operator not named?
- Anonymised at the client's request. In a regulated utility, published detail about asset data quality and regulatory reporting is sensitive. Reference conversations can be arranged under an NDA.
- Why open a case study with what you would change?
- On a multi-year embedded engagement the framing decisions are made in the first fortnight. A chronology of an engagement with no cutover would be a list of months. What a buyer needs is the set-up we would insist on now.
- How is this different from contract resource?
- A contractor fills a seat. An embedded specialist is accountable for an outcome inside your governance: a documented data standard, a measurable reduction in inconsistency, and an internal owner able to carry it on. See specialist augmentation.
- Why not fix the data first and write the standard afterwards?
- Because you would then have a cleaner version of the same disagreement, and no way to stop it recurring. In a regulated environment the written definition is part of what makes a report defensible.
- Does this need a programme window?
- No. There was no dedicated window and business as usual always took priority, so remediation went out as small reversible changes through the client's own change control. It is slower per change and it is the only cadence a regulated distribution network will sustain.
- What stays hard?
- Agreeing definitions across functions that have each been right about their own part of the estate for years, and keeping the standard from eroding once the specialist leaves. MaxIron AI Smart Data helps with classification volume, not with the agreement.
If your asset data is nearly good enough for the regulator, the gap is a definition problem before it is a data problem.
A short engagement that baselines where your asset data disagrees with itself, drafts the definitions your asset management function would be willing to sign, and proposes a remediation order set by your reporting obligations. If your internal team only needs bandwidth rather than a standard, we will say so.
Bring this and we can baseline quickly
- Your current classification scheme and hierarchy convention, written down or not.
- The regulatory returns that depend on asset data, and which fields feed them.
- Your change control gates and the realistic cadence they allow.
- The internal role you would want to own the data standard afterwards.
- The last data quality assessment you did, however uncomfortable it reads.