Alternative Methods

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Asset management includes the traditional focus of property management on the efficient use of resources as well as the need for buildings and facilities to support the strategic objectives of the business in an effective way.  Russ Ackoff explains: ‘Analysis of a system reveals its structure and how it works.  It provides the knowledge required to make it work efficiently and to repair it when it stops working.  Its product is know-how, knowledge, not understanding.  To enable a system to perform effectively we must understand it - we must be able to explain its behaviour - and this requires being aware of its functions in the larger system of which it is a part.’ [20]

These two approaches are different but not opposed; in the context of asset management, each serves its own purpose and one complements the other.  Analytical techniques are suited to solving technical problems where there is hard data and agreement exists about the issues that need to be solved and what a solution might look like; for example, designing the building’s mechanical services.  Synthesis is better suited to dealing with more messy, open-ended situations, where there may be little or no hard data and not necessarily any clear agreement about the issues to be solved or what a solution might be; for example, creating an architectural design for a building.  However, synthesis alone cannot provide a solution; it merely proposes a range of alternatives from which a solution can be drawn.  Analysis is then required to evaluate the practicality and relative merits of the proposed solutions.

Moving up the hierarchy of a complex system inevitably means shifting from a focus on technical processes to higher levels which explain the significance or overall purpose of the system.  It is usually at these higher levels, involving people, politics and cultural factors, where the most difficult problems originate and where they need to be resolved.  In the diagram on the opposite page property management issues within the solid circle are usually susceptible to analytical thinking and direct control whilst issues outside this circle are often more ambiguous: asset management and other integrated methods require more creative approaches in order to reach a solution, so that the management response and outcome may be less prescriptive.  A specification for managing property assets should incorporate both approaches.

Most business management standards adopt ‘hard systems’ thinking, where it is assumed that an optimum or ‘correct’ solution to any problem already exists and simply needs to be revealed.  By contrast, ‘soft systems’ thinking starts with the observer’s perception of a situation - it expands the hard systems approach to include the observer as part of the system.  The assumption here is that there is no correct solution; different people may interpret a situation in various ways and, in a sense, they may all be correct. [21]  Charles Handy made this point about deciding the effectiveness of prisons: ‘It is not clear, for instance, how the outcome of a prison should be measured, partly because we haven’t made up our minds whether the purpose of prison is to punish, to deter, or to rehabilitate the inmates.’ [22]  A key conclusion of this paper is that selecting measures and defining the boundaries of the system are crucial steps in the identification and analysis of business need.

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