Core Competencies in Federal Facility Asset Management
This installment in the Foundational Thinking miniseries covers the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Core Competencies for Federal Facilities Asset Management Through 2020 that was released in 2008. This report supports recommendations in NASEM’s two preceding reports: Stewardship for Federal Facilities and Investments in Federal Facilities. Recommendations contained therein focused on the need to develop personnel competencies in facility asset management as a precursor to advancing an organization’s asset management culture and capabilities. The need for Core Competencies to be written 10 years and 4 years after each of the preceding reports respectively recognizes these recommendations were not sufficiently acted upon. It also recognizes that the leading way to implement effective facility asset management is to train your workforce on its principles, concepts, and methods.
Core Competencies provides a time capsule on what leading thinkers thought was needed in terms of asset management competencies from fifteen years ago. These views align with today’s best thinking. Core Competencies substantiated the implementation of Investments, by focusing on expertise and skills needed for facility asset management. Core Competencies’ primary contribution was it introduced guidance to develop facility asset management capabilities through personnel competency development. Core Competencies made seven recommendations summarized as follows:
- Recommendation 1: Define facility asset management core competencies using an expertise and skills framework that is tailored to align with and promote the organization’s vision, culture, strategy, requirements, and needs. Within this framework expertise involves “integrating people, processes, places and technologies using a life-cycle approach to facilities asset management; aligning the facilities portfolio with the organization’s mission and available resources; and innovating across traditional functional lines and processes to address changing requirements”. Skills “includes a balance of technical, business, and behavioral capabilities and enterprise knowledge”.
- Recommendation 2: Define and align core competencies for specific management functions in terms of the expertise and skill levels needed for each.
- Recommendation 3: Establish, periodically audit, improve, and implement actions plans to maintain needed and evolving competency levels.
- Recommendation 4: Develop and implement strategies to acquire, develop, and sustain a workforce with the required core competencies. This strategy needs to define competency pathways for individuals to gain needed leadership, expertise, and skills through a continuum of experience and opportunities.
- Recommendation 5: Professionalize facility asset management competency development to achieve the organization’s mission and facility asset management objectives.
- Recommendation 6: Promote involvement in professional societies, organizations, and certification programs to enhance development of facility asset management core competencies.
- Recommendation 7: Employ measurement of the organization’s facility asset management maturity linked to core competency development and analysis.
These recommendations reflect the best thinking of the time. Specifically, that facility asset management is an independent management discipline that involves the integration and coordination of many other management disciplines. The importance of personal competencies is now recognized in ISO 55001, Paragraph 7.2 – Competence that details requirements of an asset management system reflective of recommendations contained in Core Competencies.
Although there is one concept Core Competencies introduced that will be reframed in the upcoming newsletter on NASEM’s Strategies to Renew Federal Facilities. This concept was that facility asset management is only a part of a facility life cycle management loop, that is one of a few management function groups. The second functional group was planning, design, and construction, and the third group was operations and maintenance.
This concept is inconsistent with ISO 55000 that views asset management as the coordination of management activities that manage assets. This ISO 55000 view makes a distinction between “managing assets” and “asset management”. The former focuses on tactical activities related to asset life cycle management, and the latter focuses on the “why” part of the asset question and return on investments. ISO 55000 defines asset management in a broader context that encompasses activities that both manage assets and coordinate related management activities.
This viewpoint is further developed in an ISO Technical Committee 251 paper titled: “Managing Assets in the Context of Asset Management”. This context is reinforced through ISO 55000’s fundamentals that frame value realized through asset management as follows: “Asset management does not focus on the asset itself, but on the value that the asset can provide to the organization.” These sources were released after Core Competencies was published and clarify that asset management is a broad discipline that involves both the management of activities that manage assets and the coordination of these activities with other management functions needed to achieve the organization’s objectives.
In the end, NASEM's Core Competencies in Federal Facility Asset Management played a crucial role in the US Federal sector. At the time of its release, government departments and agencies were actively managing their facility portfolios and adapting to new policies. The release of Investments and the signing of Executive Order 13327 – Federal Real Property Asset Management in 2004 brought a significant shift in the approach to federal real property management. This shift necessitated the development of new asset management expertise and skills, which Core Competencies aimed to address.
However, despite the availability of Core Competencies and the recognition of the need for change, the desired level of transformation did not occur as anticipated. The reasons for this limited change are detailed in a later NASEM report titled Strategies to Renew Federal Facilities that will be covered in an upcoming newsletter Nevertheless, Core Competencies remains a valuable resource that outlines essential requirements for effective and competent facility asset management.
Written by: James J. Dempsey | July 4, 2023
#assetleadership #assetmanagement #investmentstrategy #riskmanagement #enterpriseriskmanagement #iso55000 #iso55001 #facilitymanagement
Helpful Links:
NASEM – Core Competencies for Federal Facilities Asset Management Through 2020.
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NASEM – Stewardship of Federal Facilities
NASEM – Investments in Federal Facilities
NASEM – Strategies to Renew Federal Facilities
ISO – Managing Assets in the Context of Asset Management
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翻译：
Understanding How Governments and Cultures Function
1yWhile E.O. 13327 added new requirements for asset management, I am not sure that it created a lasting change in the approach to Federal real property management.
Project Controls Consultant @ L | Certified Guild Fellow of Planning & Scheduling
1yBrilliant