I hope that you have enjoyed thinking about Doug Bartlett’s Four Post series on ‘words matter’. So why not grab yourself a cup of coffee and sit down and write a comment? If you agree with the interpretation that Doug has adopted, do tell him, and tell us why. Equally, if you would have interpreted the words (and the challenge that goes with them) differently, tell us that, and why. If you have useful examples, add them.
There is plenty of scope here for comment and now there are TWO reasons for doing so.
- As a thank-you to the blog poster, a courteous acknowledgement.
- As potential for ideas, topics and speakers for our coming Podcast series
If you have not yet caught up with our news on our coming podcast, see our Weekly Roundup, Sunday July 1st. – and watch for updates in our coming Sunday round-ups.
Note:
Latest comments show up in the right hand side bar here on the front page, as well as being attached to the post itself. So add comment to any post. It doesn’t have to be the most recent to be seen.
‘Talking Infrastructure’ is about to produce a podcast series. Its focus is “rethinking infrastructure decision making for the 21st century”.
Partnership
We are delighted to welcome the partnership of the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) in this venture.
Thinking IDM
Public infrastructure investments typically have a long life, affect large populations with diverse needs, extend over large territories, and are not only difficult (and sometimes impossible) to change or undo, but have high capital and ongoing costs, and substantial (and often insufficiently recognised) opportunity costs. For all these reasons, public infrastructure decision making has always been challenging. In other words, we have always had to think!
Rethinking IDM
But there is now an extra dimension. Change is always with us, so why do we consider 21st century change more critical? (Apart from the fact that it is where we are now!)
First there is the magnitude, rapidity and scope of change occurring simultaneously on many fronts – technological, demographic, environmental – as well as in public attitudes towards our key decision makers in government, institutions, science, finance and education.. There is a major political shift occurring across the world increasing the sense of fear and scarcity, just when technological change is increasing the opportunity for us to have hope and abundance. To which must be added the need to address cyber terrorism and the communication difficulties introduced by a post-truth world.
If ever rethinking was necessary, it is now.
Our intended audience is all who want, or need to, understand and shape the future of public infrastructure.
This includes academics, bureaucrats, politicians, and political advisors, as well as investors, financiers, and, of course, asset managers.
Keep watching, more information to come!
The third in our series on ‘words matter’ by Douglas Bartlett, Manager Asset Planning, City of Kalamunda. Do you agree? As usual, Doug welcomes your responses and alternatives.
Grenfell Tower Fire June 2017
Risk management, when taken to its root cause, is about the potential harm to an individual. But not just any individual, it is the harm to the person assessing the risk. We are all, by nature, selfish and will always assess and measure things against ourselves (no matter how gracious and service oriented we may be). If I assess the risk of a Bike Plan failing to deliver its outcomes, I can talk about how the community won’t get the health benefits or maybe safety improvements that it needs, but whether these things happen or not is irrelevant to me unless I (personally) can be affected by it. I can be affected by getting blamed for the failed outcomes, or by losing reputation. So the core perception of risk comes down to how the individual perceives the threat of harm.
Risks are ‘managed’ by introducing practices that are thought to decline the level of risk. Risks (in terms of AM planning) are typically recorded only for significant events, and treatments are also typically not analysed in detail. So the activity of risk management in AM may suffer from a lack of detail, and also may suffer from the assumption that management practices will manage the risk.
In my job, I am uncertain on a day to day basis. I am uncertain when I reply to a request for a new path, because I can’t be sure if the path is really needed. I am uncertain when a developer wants to discharge stormwater into the drain pipe, because despite the calculations and standards there are a huge number of assumptions being made. From an analytical and statistical perspective, I am uncertain most of the time.
So which term is more useful? In consideration of our selfish natures, is it more harmful to me to be uncertain or to try to manage risk? I am uncertain on a day to day basis and it does not appear to be causing me harm. By implication then I won’t try to change practices where they appear to be working (no matter how uncertain they may be). So, I think Risk is the better term as it will drive a reaction from the individual.
What’s new this week?
Announcement : Categories have been added to all of the posts we have uploaded so far. Existing categories are
- Understanding Infrastructure
- New Perspectives
- The Four Transitions, namely
- From Efficiency to Effectiveness
- From Sustainability to Adaptability
- From Risk to Resilience under Uncertainty
- From Growth to Prosperity for all
- The Weekly RoundUp
Explanations of these categories can be found by clicking on “Categories” in the main menu or by clicking on any of the individual categories.
Commentary; This week we have four extremely thoughtful and extensive comments by Doug Bartlett, one each to the last four posts as a start to further conversation, so join in, comment on the post or on any comment. And just a reminder to all, to see the comments associated with each post, remember to click ‘comments’ in the post menu
Some of the more Interesting ideas arising from commentary and communication this week.
Kathy Dever Todd commented on The Third AM Revolution and in subsequent conversation spoke of her work in New Zealand on Resilience. This has caused me to rethink the third transition which I had previously positioned as ‘from risk to uncertainty’. Resilience, however is a better word for the goal of dealing with uncertainty for it has positive connotations (as well as a developing literature), so, thanks to Kathy, I am repositioning the third transition as ‘From Risk to Resilience’.
The Third AM Revolution also drew thoughtful comment from John Falade who acknowledged that plant asset managers aimed at 95% efficiency for critical assets but argued that “Whilst we can celebrate the emphasis on critical assets as a paradigm shift from the pre strategic asset management era mindset of ‘all assets must be maintained’, it still stops short of asking the questions: What do I or my organisation want to achieve with our assets? What assets re really critical towards the achievement of our objectives? Do we need 95% reliability or availabilit of these assets to achieve our objectives. In other words, do I need so much efficiency to be effective? (my emphasis) See his full comment.
Milos Posavijak commented on A Strange Business, providing a link to manufacturing process and product life cycles and contrasting manufacturing plant and community infrastructure in terms of variety and standardisation. See comment and link. In his comment on Is There Still a Role for Common Sense? he put forward the intriguing proposition that ‘the model is not the predictor of future reality, but a JIT factory for future scenarios from the most granular asset information to the overall network’ Definitely worth further consideration, see comment.
In email discussion over Do Efficiency and Effectiveness conflict? Sandy Dunn referred to the Transport Department that, with the appointment of a new Head, realised that their function was not to build and maintain roads, but to minimise traffic congestion. This brought on quite a bit of work in analysing and resequencing traffic signals – and they have achieved some good results. This led me to think how many of us have ‘process determined’ objectives such as ‘build and maintain roads’ when we would be better served with ‘outcome determined’ objectives such as minimise traffic congestion. Your thoughts?
In conversation with Ron Riegel-Huth over Understanding the Objective, he queried whether ‘reduce road accidents’ or ‘improve road safety’ was really the main determining objective of the government. Surely, he suggested, the real determinant was ‘how do we get this road accident public pressure off our backs? And, he added, unless we start with the real objective, our research and analysis will be ineffective. Again, your thoughts?
Enjoy the weekend. Penny
No new posts this week. I am in Perth for our second City Chapter meeting. Posts will resume next week.
In the meantime feel free to comment on any existing post.
Penny
The UK Government has been criticised for its lack of a national infrastructure policy. Some might say this applies to Australia as well. However, before we can develop an infrastructure strategy that can gain national acceptance, we need to have a general understanding across the nation about the purpose of infrastructure. In other words, common agreement on ‘what’s it for?” So, today, we have a little quiz.
1. Which of the following BEST expresses for you the prime purpose of infrastructure?
- create jobs
- increase productivity
- maintain strategic control
- provide a needed service
- raise the standard of living
- stimulate the economy
- sustain the construction industry
- SOMETHING ELSE (please describe)
2. Do others see things the same way? Spend a few minutes and consider who might support each of the other definitions. (Research shows that each idea IS supported by some group.)
3. For those within an organisation, does your organisation see things the way you do? What is the evidence that they do? E.g. A policy, a principle, or, better yet, a practice.
4. Looking now to the State or the Federal level of government, what purpose would you say most reflects their infrastructure choices? Are their choices consistent with each other? Is what drives them also what drives you or your organisation? That is. do you have the same purpose? How do you know?
Have fun!
And do click the ‘add a comment’ tag in the menu bar and share any of your ideas.
The 9th World Urban Forum was held in Kuala Lumpur a week ago. This is where tens of thousands of people from across the world gather to find ‘best practice’ examples and ideas that they can take back to their countries or organisations to improve their communities. Now, apart from being different from what is being done now, what commends a particular ‘best practice’ example to any individual participant? What should? What do you look for in a ‘best practice’ example? (e.g. what tells you that it IS ‘best practice’?) What would it take to develop a guidance tool to quickly assess any given example, to enable you to hone in on those with the most opportunity for success? Considering the dangers of ‘doing different’ just for difference sake, of which we spoke in the last post, I have, over the last few months, been speaking with a couple of colleagues as to how this could be done.
Where do we start? Firstly – Know thyself! Those of you who were caught up in the benchmarking craze some years ago, may remember how organisations would gleefully arrange meetings with ‘best practice’ organisations to see what they could glean. And they would do this, without first taking the trouble to understand fully what they were themselves doing. Many changes were made that lacked understanding, and caused more damage than they avoided.
A first iteration of such a guidance app, with a strong focus on understanding our own organisations and what is driving their decision making, was trialled at the Urban Forum in KL last week which established proof of concept.
We are now considering a forum for further development and testing.
Question:
Does this idea intrigue you? And would you would like to be part of its further development? If so, please let me know in the comments section below or write me at penny@TalkingInfrastructure.com
Next Week: Problems with Infrastructure Decision Making.
Community membership is open to everyone who has an interest in making the changes in infrastructure necessary for the 21st century, there is no fee – and we welcome you all!
However, for those community members who would like to go further and actively contribute to the goals of Talking Infrastructure, invitations are offered to become full (i.e. voting, direction-setting) members.
Please welcome our most recent Full Members:
Dr Neville Binning
Neville’s company, EDAB, has a speciality in transport infrastructure. He has a PhD in Asset Management and is the International Vice President of the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport (CILT). Neville has taken on the role of Chair of the Talking Infrastructure’s Perth City Chapter.
Hein Aucamp,
Hein is Infrastructure Asset Management Consultant at WA Integrated Asset Management. Hein is a member of the Perth City Chapter and a contributer to the Blog. Multi-talented, Hein also has broadcasting experience in South Africa.
Sophie Wallis,
Sophie is an experienced facilitator and Strategy and Sustainability Consultant at Upthink, a member of the Perth City Chapter and contributor to the Blog. When we realised that we both had an interest in Nudge Theory and Behavioural Economics and its relationship to infrastructure, Sophie and I collaborated on a series of blogs on Nudge Theory.
Chris Adam,
Chris is Director of Strategic AM Pty Ltd, is a management consultant specialising in the water industry. Chris was a regular contributor to Strategic Asset Management and is one of the first to have made the essential transition now to Infrastructure Decision Making. He is a contributor to the Blog and a specialist advisor to Talking Infrastructure.
ACTION If you would like to be invited to become a full, voting, direction-setting, member of Talking Infrastructure, there are TWO simple steps you need to take:
Step One: Join the Talking Infrastructure Community as a Community Member
Step Two: Text me your mobile number so that we may organise a chat to find out what you are interested in and would like to see us do.
Penny Burns, Chair, Talking Infrastructure, 0434 406 751
No fees
The Board has decided that for the foreseeable future we will not charge fees for full voting membership of Talking Infrastructure. Full membership will, instead, be by invitation to those Community members that contribute in a meaningful way to the work of the Association.
Our first invitations go to
- Kerry McGovern, of K.McGovern & Associates, who initiated, and collaborated with Talking Infrastructure in designing, a 5 day workshop in the audit of infrastructure performance for Auditors-General in the Pacific Islands.
- Mark Neasbey, of the Australian Centre for Value Management, who has contributed many posts for the Blog, that have been amongst the most highly read and commented on.
- Ben Lawson of Common Thread Consulting who has been a regular reader and prolific commentator on the blog
Our congratulations to Kerry, Mark and Ben. Your commitment to the development, information exchange and debate ideals of Talking Infrastructure are putting us where we are today.
Thank you.
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