Building a Capital Asset Management Program.

• Author: Rowe, Benjamin

Asset management and capital planning go together: Best practice asset management informs better capital planning.

And no matter where your government is on the asset management maturity spectrum, you are probably doing something right. Start where you are, identify the best next step, and work toward incremental improvement. This article should help you and your organization begin, revive, or improve your journey toward implementing asset management best practices.

1 | Find an Asset Management Champion

The first step is no secret: Perhaps the most important factor for successful implementation of an asset management and capital planning program is selecting and supporting an asset management champion--someone who is empowered to lead the effort to improve asset management throughout the organization. In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins explained it this way: "Get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we'll figure out how to take it someplace great." (1) The lessons I have learned from building asset management and capital planning programs over the years come from both successes and failures. For the most part, success is the result of having the right asset management champions in the right seats on the bus.

Asset management champions are rare. The Canadian Network of Asset Managers (CNAM) describes champions as "business strategists who understand a little bit about each of these specialties"--that is, risk, finance, engineering, economics, and information management. "Asset managers see the big picture ... You need a champion to drive the program, develop the relationships and manage the larger vision ... while taking measurable steps to get there and build buy-in as you progress." (2)

In a meeting with 50 asset managers representing more than 20 different public agencies in the Portland metropolitan area, the presenter asked the group, "Who here majored in asset management in college?" Not one attendee raised their hand. Asset managers today can come from any of the disciplines listed above. Terrific asset managers come from backgrounds in information technology, project management, finance, planning, engineering, and maintenance.

The asset management champion your agency needs is a business strategist with a background in one of these disciplines. It is as important, however, that this person can be a builder of relationships and consensus across disciplines and is someone who is equally comfortable making presentations to the governing body, facilitating a steering committee, and articulating the best next step to move the organization toward better asset management practices.

You may be asking yourself: Does such a unicorn exist? Yes. Ask around. There is likely someone in your organization who has a burning passion to implement better stewardship of public funds and to deliver on the promise of your agency's core services. Sometimes this person will volunteer for the job, sometimes they'll be discovered, and sometimes they'll be voted in by their peers. Whatever the case, your champion is out there waiting for an invitation.

Once identified, your champion will be most successful with a close sponsor and/or collaborator like the chief finance officer (CFO), chief operating officer (COO), Project Management Office (PMO) manager, or lead engineer. The CNAM says: "It doesn't matter if you are a staff member, a manager, or elected official ... Someone needs to start talking about it. Asset management is a journey for the organization, it consists of incremental steps towards formalizing and optimizing what you are already doing, and it might start with you." (3)

2 | Get Support from Both Executive Leadership and...