When I set out to write this series, I knew it was going to be a long one. However, we are 13 (my lucky number – Shout out to Dan Marino the legendary QB of the Miami Dolphins) posts in with a lot of remaining content left over the last two layers of the Onion! Thanks to all of you that have stuck with me. I hope that the exploration of the framework has been worth your investment and has provided you and your team with ideas on how to improve your own approach to asset management. Back to the onion!

Last post, I focused on how to tell your Asset Management Story using consistent and defensible data. Unfortunately, not every organization has the opportunity to secure additional capital renewal funding at a specific point in time. It may take a few years of sharing your forecast before you are lucky enough to secure additional funding.

However, just because there may not be a new pot of capital renewal funding available today, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use the same rigor and approach to develop and communicate your capital renewal plans. In these cases, the goal is primarily to explain how you are making the decisions with the money that you have. By showing that you are spending your limited funds wisely (based on the organizational goals that were integrated into your prioritization system), your credibility with your stakeholders will increase.

This increased credibility will lead to greater trust, and in our experience a more streamlined review and approval process for future capital plans. In one case, in just two budget cycles we were able to assist a K-12 school district in turning the annual budget review process from a “celebrity death match” (their term) into a collaborative exercise that resulted in streamlined approvals. What used to be a long, drawn out, contentious “negotiation” process, this became easy and much more cordial discussion and approval meeting.

Finally, if/when there is additional funding released, the trust and credibility that you have built up with your stakeholders will allow you and your team to more nimbly respond to the additional funds. There is still gold in these hills, even if it isn’t in a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in the sky today!