Your Project Backlog is Growing At Your Utility; Here’s How to Break the Cycle

If you work at an electric utility, this probably sounds familiar: the list of critical projects is growing longer, but the budget hasn’t. You’re facing pressure to modernize the grid: optimize outages to avoid churn, serve large load requests, implement granular facility ratings across your thousands of miles of transmission, integrate DERs, or improve reliability. Any or all of this while dealing with an aging infrastructure and a changing workforce. The result is a project backlog that feels more like an ice jam—a frozen collection of crucial initiatives, none of which can seem to break free.

This state of “analysis paralysis” is common. When every project is a top priority, it becomes impossible to choose one. The risk of picking the “wrong” one, or scoping a project so large that it never gets funded, can be paralyzing. We recently spoke with a team facing a backlog of delayed reliability projects totaling over $100 million —a perfect storm of urgent needs and finite resources.

But there is a path forward. Breaking the cycle doesn’t require a massive, multi-year big bang project touching all aspects of your business.

It starts with a single, strategic choice.

Step 1: Overcome Paralysis by Finding Your “Keystone” Project

When you’re overwhelmed, the tendency is to look for the biggest, most impressive solution. Instead, look for a “keystone” project. In an ecosystem, a keystone species is not necessarily the largest, but it’s the one that has an outsized impact on its environment. In your project backlog, the keystone is the initiative that will unlock the most future value.

How do you spot it? Look for a project that meets three criteria:

1. It Solves a Real, Chronic Pain. Look for a workflow that is universally described as “annoying,” “manual,” or “risky.” Often, these are processes that have been patched together in a system like Excel for decades. Spreadsheets are the OG low-code tool. At Simple Thread, we believe spreadsheets are one of the best early clues as to where building a digital platform could, eventually, make sense. For one planning team, this was scores of spreadsheets used for contingency analysis—a process that was not only manual but had remained unchanged for nearly 20 years.
2. It’s Foundational. The ideal starting point is a project that, once solved, makes other projects easier. Does it automate the creation of a core dataset? Does it streamline a validation process? Automating the contingency analysis spreadsheets, for example, not only helps planners but also creates a trusted data source that can eventually feed operational tools and long-term investment models.
3. It Has an Engaged Champion. Look for the team that is most passionate about a solution. An engaged, motivated internal champion who feels the pain of the current process every day is the single greatest asset you can have.

The goal is to pick one project where success is both highly visible and highly repeatable.

Step 2: Start with an Increment, Not an Overhaul

Once you’ve identified your keystone project, resist the urge to solve the entire problem at once. Instead, find the smallest possible slice that will deliver measurable value.

This “lean” approach does two critical things:

• It Delivers a Quick Win: It demonstrates tangible progress in months, not years. This builds trust with stakeholders and proves the value of the new approach.
• It De-Risks the Investment: It keeps the initial budget small and manageable. A focused, successful pilot project is far more likely to get funded than a massive, multi-million dollar overhaul, especially when budgets are tight.

Step 3: Let Your First Success Fund the Next

This is where the magic happens. The value you create with your first incremental win becomes the currency you use to fund the next project in the backlog. This creates a “cascade effect” that breaks the ice jam.

A Proven ROI: You are no longer asking for funding based on a vendor’s promise; you are building an internal business case based on a demonstrated success. When you can say, “Our first phase saved X engineering hours and eliminated Y operational risks,” the conversation about funding the next phase becomes much easier.

Freed-Up Resources: The efficiency gained from the first project frees up your most valuable resource: your people. Engineers who were previously bogged down in manual work can now lend their expertise to the next modernization initiative on the list.

A Reusable Pattern: You have now established a successful, low-risk pattern for identifying a problem, collaborating on a solution, and delivering value. The path to approval for subsequent projects is now clearer and less politically risky.

The feeling of being overwhelmed by a massive project backlog is real, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. The way out is not a single leap but a series of deliberate, strategic steps. Start by finding one painful, foundational process with a passionate champion. By delivering a small, tangible win, you can build the momentum needed to turn that daunting backlog into a track record of success.