Is Just Over 40 Enough?

This column has nothing to do with age. It has everything to do with how small sampling populations can be motivating even if they are not statistically significant. Before we get too far ahead, let me give you some background.

Recently I had the opportunity to participate as a speaker at CoBank's annual Energy and Water Executive Forum in Salt Lake City. CoBank is a rural-America cooperative bank that, among many other critical services, helps rural water and wastewater utilities with their financial solutions. Many of these utilities are AWWA members.

CoBank had heard about AWWA's Water 2050 program and invited me to share the forward-looking initiative with its members. As it turned out, I did not share the most surprising information—CoBank's rural water utility attendees did.

After describing the background, inclusive process, and goals of Water 2050, I presented six of the strategic recommendations. I asked attendees to categorize each one according to achievability and impact. Tables 1 and 2 display the results for two of the recommendations: (1) Establish full cost rates and affordable access to water and (2) Achieve economies of scale through consolidation of utilities. The great news is that in both cases, these Water 2050 recommendations were mostly viewed as having a positive future impact.

In Table 1, 60% of the respondents felt establishing full cost rates was both highly achievable and highly impactful. I have labeled this category “Transformative.” Another 26% of the respondents also felt this recommendation would have a high impact but that achievability would be low. That makes sense to me. The exciting part is that 86% of the respondents agreed that full cost rates would result in a high impact that is positive for the future, and most felt it was a highly achievable goal, while others (26%) felt achieving the positive impact would be an “epic” feat.

Table 2 shows similar results, with most respondents recognizing that consolidating utilities would have a positive future impact. However, among this group, the expectations of achievability were more evenly distributed than in Table 1, indicating that extra effort will be needed to succeed in these epic feats.

CoBank's Executive Forum was the first time I had done this—asking water professionals to evaluate the likelihood that a Water 2050 recommendation would have a positive impact and be achievable. Frankly, while I was pleased and motivated by these results, I was also a bit surprised that the scales tipped as much as they did in support of the recommendations.

For those of you who notice that I have provided the “n” (i.e., sample size) for Tables 1 and 2 and that in both cases the sample size was just over 40, you might be thinking that 40 is not enough to have statistical confidence in these results. You are probably right; however, the results, even with their limitations, indicate that Water 2050 is on the right path, and these recommendations are pointing in the right direction. So yes, in this case, just over 40 is enough.

The Water 2050 recommendations were often born from the request to “imagine the impossible” for the future of water. The small sample size from my discussion with water utilities at CoBank's forum may not provide statistical confidence, but it does indicate that if you can imagine the impossible, you probably are not alone in what you are imagining. There is power in numbers, even as low as 40—thanks, CoBank.