Penny and Ruth at AM Peak gala dinner, April 16 2024

Since I last posted I have spent a month celebrating 40 years of Asset Management in Australia with Penny, Jeff and Gregory; gone to one of my favourite conferences in Minneapolis; taught an advanced AM course to some sophisticated AM practitioners in Calgary, as well delivering to as a post ISO 55000 certification client in California.

I have been thinking about where AM needs to go next, at the same time as worrying that things have not moved far enough.

And it just keeps coming back to: We Need to Raise our Game. And not because what Penny kicked off four decades ago hasn’t made a huge difference already.

But I want us to do more.

First, to effect what Penny set out to do through Talking Infrastructure: to look up and out, to make a difference to key decisions on what infrastructure we really need.

Secondly, as I start to unwind from delivering basic AM training – something I have loved doing for nearly 14 years now – I reflect on our competencies.

This kicks off a series of questions and reflections on what we want to change, and how to do it.

How to interest existing AM practitioners in upskilling on risk, data analysis, culture/ system change, persuasion, strategic thinking?

How to find people who want to challenge the status quo on infrastructure projects?

What can we best offer from our collective experiences to support better decision-making?

I am looking forward to this!