Community Asset Management - Firebird Business Consulting

Community Asset Management - Firebird Business Consulting provides the following community and municipal asset management workshop activities designed to assist municipalities in advancing their asset management practices.

Level-of-Service Benchmarking 

Asset management is about providing quality services to residents in the most effective manner. Firebird will assist in developing an understanding of how level-of-service impacts both your community and municipal resources. This is accomplished by establishing a high-level definition of the current level-of-service, the desired level-of-service, and how the level-of-service performance will be measured.

We will work through the following steps to establishing a level-of-service framework:

• Identify existing performance measures 
• Determine performance trends
• Develop preliminary target service levels and identify performance gaps
• Discussion on what level-of-service means to residents and business owner, and the impact on municipal resources
• Assess need to adjust level of service
• Establish how to meet level of service targets

Decision Making for Risk Management Strategies

How decisions are made to allocate financial and corporate resources can be the most involved aspect of an asset management plan. In many cases decisions are based on financial resources and addressing assets in the most need of rehabilitation. Other factors may play a role including but not limited to: land use amenities – schools, commercial corridors, vulnerability to climate impacts, traffic volumes, capital budget impacts, etc.

Risk is defined as the ‘effect of uncertainty on objectives. Risk events which may compromise the delivery of organizational strategic objectives.’ Risk management is an iterative process of managing the risks associated with providing services, including those that can result from failure of infrastructure.

Council should be informed of significant asset and strategic risks and how these are being managed. The identification and management of risks includes classifying the source of the risk, such as: Planning, Human Resource, Management, Delivery, Financial, or Physical Asset risks.

Firebird will provide guidance towards establishing a framework for managing risks associated with providing services, including those that can result from the failure of infrastructure, administration and operations, and long-range planning.

Demand Management

Demand management is focused on the mechanisms to ensure that the delivery of quality services is fiscally, environmentally and socially responsible.

Actions taken to manage the impact of shifts in population and demographics through demand management are often addressed as part of community resiliency initiatives including the ability to minimize the need for additionally asset investment. Demand management actions may be focused on supply-side demand management such as minimizing leaks in water distribution mains and/or demand-side management to reduce demand for overutilized assets or vice versa.

Communication Strategies for Elected Officials

90% of communication fails because it is solely based on logic! Effective communication allows for information to be provided to the public regarding how decisions at all levels of the municipality. Decisions about level-of-service, risk management, demand management and costs of providing services need to be communicated both internally through Council, Administration, and to the public to develop a deeper understanding of infrastructure services and what it takes to deliver them.

This workshop explores communication strategies for presenting trade-offs between level-of-service, risk, and cost to support sound decision-making and effective public and stakeholder communication.