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• Who is responsible for your Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Plan?
  
• Where are you today in your NERC compliance? Self auditing requirements? Will you be ready by 2010? Are you working with a NERC consultant today?
  
• What are you doing for your Physical security (protecting mission critical assets)?
  
• How are you using video surveillance today/future? Will it be a distributed or centralized architecture? Monitored from one central point or multiple points?
  
• How would you like to improve logical/cyber security (protecting integrity of your information)?
  
• Are you aware that if you change your architecture this will change your cyber protocols? What are your plans to protect your network…your base station / sub stations…your wireless networks?
  
• Are you seeing an opportunity to improve workforce security (managing authentication and authority of workforce)?
  
• How are you managing network access to critical applications today?
  
• How is remote access and mobility changing your workforce security requirements?
  
• What are your plans for disaster recovery/ business continuity?
  

• What smart grid initiatives are you planning to implement over the next 3 years?
  
• How aggressive are you in automating your sub stations?
  
• Are you seeing a need for workforce mobility?
  
• Are you planning to implement smart metering?
  

• How do you currently forecast shifts in demand? How accurate are you today?
  
• Are you seeing major shifts with your growth? What trends are you seeing?
  
• What are your plans to transform your business to meet the demand? (operational efficiencies within your delivery network or additional generation / distribution)
  
• What demands are you seeing today? What demands do you anticipate over the next 5 years that you're not seeing today?
  
• What are your customers saying they need today? How are you planning for that without interrupting your core business today?
  
• Do you have a multi-year plan to support your growth?
  
• Are you planning to implement smart metering?
  

• Where are you seeing key opportunities to realize cost saving?
  
• Fuel and operations
  
• Consolidation of company resources
  
• Network transformation / network consolidation
  
• Automated meter reading
  
• Do you have a strategy for consolidating resources (Network consolidation and/or resources)?
  

What is your strategy for increased automation? Why is it a priority?

What challenges are you facing in implementing your automation strategy?

How would you like to improve grid intelligence?

• Is visibility into the grid sufficient?
  
• If not, what are your plans to increase visibility?
  

Are you implementing new capabilities to remotely control sub-stations?

• Is your SCADA equipment reaching end of life today?
  
• Is your plan to replace or extend the life of this equipment?
  

• Do you currently have equipment that is not supported?
• How are you addressing this challenge?

• Have TDM-based applications impacted your ability to evolve your network?
  
• Are your suppliers withdrawing TDM support?
  

• Do you have a disaster recovery plan for your SCADA system?
  
• How are you protecting your SCADA system today?
  

What are your plans to meet NERC/FERC requirements as it pertains to SCADA?

• Is your expectation to maintain hitless network recovery?
  
• Are the new IP applications expected to exhibit similar recovery behavior?
  

How do you maintain reliability?

• Ensuring regulatory compliance
  
• Preventing cyber terrorism
  
• Planning for consolidation
  

• Meeting growing demand
  
• Improving customer interaction
  
• Reducing the downtime of assets
  

• Supporting emerging applications
  
• Improving intelligence and visibility into the grid
  
• Eliminating disruptions to ongoing operations
  

• Where are you today in your NERC compliance? Will you be ready by 2010? Are you working with a NERC consultant today?
  
• What programs do you have in place or are planned to manage demand?
  

• How would you like to improve you ability to respond to security threats?
  
• Which applications are you protecting?
  
• Describe the types of data you need to protect on mobile devices?
  

What are some of the ways you would like to improve your security position?

• How would you like to improve your disaster recovery capabilities to ensure business continuity?
  
• Do you implement disaster recovery today?
  

Is your network of age that it won't be able to meet growing demand?

How are anticipating and responding to competition?

• How would you like to improve your physical security (access control, video, magnetic locks, fingerprints/biometrics, etc.)?
  
• How could video surveillance improve security?
  

• What programs do you have in place or are planned to manage demand?
  
• How is growing demand impacting your cost structure?
  

How are you addressing your recruiting and training challenge?

How are you transferring knowledge from seasoned workforce to new team members?

• Are you looking to provide remote access and visibility to documentation?
  
• What are your plans for remote collaboration?
  
• Describe some of your mobility initiatives?
  
• What are your distribution automation plans?
  

How are your maintaining a predictable cost model today?

• How is your communication infrastructure helping support the reliability of your grid?
  
• Can you existing communication infrastructure support the business for the next 5 years?
  
• How has downtime impacted your operational budget?