Thought leadership Evolving value Should the asset management standard ISO 55000 evolve to reflect social outcomes and value? Steve Wyton, of the City of Calgary, argues the case for re-evaluation I recall a beautiful spring evening when I was sitting with a friend in a pub near Oxford Circus in London. It was 2010, and the two of us were delegates at the inaugural meeting of what was then known as PC251. He was sharing his thoughts about this thing we now call ISO 55000. As the Canadian Head of Delegation, I was a noob to international standards and he was guiding me through the politics of the day. I vividly remember that conversation because it is foundational to what I think is a natural tension that faces our community of practice. His comments went something like this: Our new standard is really about service management, but we cant call it that because that name is already taken. The best we can do is asset management. Im sure that other municipal asset owners/operators, and private business owners alike, would agree that we arent just developing a standard about assets its about service value, the benefits that our organisations are providing in the larger societal context and, more specifically, for social benefit. Unlocking value Asset management enables an organisation to realise value from assets in the achievement of its organisational objectives This statement, taken from the first few pages of the 00 document within the suite of ISO 55000 standards, is a foundation for our international standard. It sets the stage for a conundrum as related to the comment my friend made back in 2010. First off, the concept of value is a central tenet within the ISO standard, yet I find it intriguing that we only recently started to explore the concept. The reticence is well justified business can easily define the frameworks that help to manage value, but defining service value itself is difficult at best. Value is a very personal thing. It depends on your past, present and future lived experiences. Value may not be tangible and, in fact, is often difficult to articulate. Take, for instance, a municipal park: before the pandemic, many municipalities struggled to spend public funds on great open spaces. But once our society chose to socially isolate, citizens who didnt have private gardens were forced to spend time in those open spaces. They now relied on those spaces to congregate with their social Author bio Steve Wyton has worked for the City of Calgary since 1994. Since 2004, he has been the Manager of Asset Management Planning. His responsibilities include oversight of the Corporations asset management programme, and the provision of strategic advice to the City Council and senior management regarding Calgarys infrastructure strategies and investments for a capital portfolio valued at C$100bn. He is a founding member and past Chair of the Canadian Network of Asset Managers, Vice Chair of the Canadian Advisory Committee for the ISO 55000 international asset management standard, and the former Chief Examiner for the Institute of Asset Management. circle. They may have also used these places as an escape from reality during this difficult time. In this sense, the value being derived from that park is much more than the municipal service metrics measure. As an aside, municipalities are seeing that trend continue post-pandemic, with many of these open spaces over loved, as one parks employee put it to me recently. Limiting language Second, I observe that the above statement, when coupled with the visual concept that asset management sits within the organisational context, can be interpreted in different ways by top management. More specifically, I observe that many municipal asset management programmes are limited to consider assets that are under its direct control. As a result, Im worried that we have created language that limits the ability to measure service value and outcomes beyond that of our municipal organisations. Additionally, there still seems to be little guidance on how municipalities can link levels of service to societal social benefit and demonstrate how that municipality is making the lives of its citizens better. I recognise recent efforts and advocacy for the development of a new standard for the application of sustainability principles and natural asset management.* I also applaud the application of ESG (environmental, social and governance) and The Six Capitals frameworks to asset management but with a tendency to focus on embedding environmental practices. I look forward to the application of models that enable the development of social return and benefit, too. Time to evolve Lastly, the very nature of the term asset management insinuates that this is a job limited to the engineering and technical community. I observe that top management of many municipalities tend to attest that they have achieved a high level of asset management maturity when they have implemented a basic managing assets approach, including life-cycle costing, reliability engineering and risk-based investment prioritisation. It seems less common to see an organisation that has evolved to achieve the more strategic objectives of managing service value and societal outcomes, and the demonstration of benefits realisation To me, it seems less common to see an organisation that has evolved to achieve the more strategic objectives of managing service value and societal outcomes, and the demonstration of benefits realisation. So, herein lies the conundrum the ISO statement from above is simple. It gets across the basic concepts behind a technical asset management approach as a critical part of an organisations business system. On the other hand, it avoids the much more complex, and less technical, strategies that are required to demonstrate service value and societal benefit. The fact is that ISO 55000s take-up is relatively low compared with other ISO standards. Should we keep the standard simple to improve subscription or should it evolve into an aspirational, less mechanical document that better reflects the need to include concepts such as service value, environmental outcomes and social benefit? Im incredibly proud of the accomplishments made by our community of practice over the many years, and acknowledge our desire to continually evolve the approach. In this light, I know that our municipalities need the additional support to demonstrate that infrastructure investments are aligned with societal social benefit and service value. In true Canadian style, I know we can find a middle ground to the conundrum. *There is a new Canadian standard, Specification for Natural Asset Inventories, CSA W218:23, that was published by the CSA Group immediately before the release of this article. This standard has been applied by the City of Calgary as a first step towards a comprehensive approach to natural asset management.
