Asset Lifecycle

The purpose of the identify & design phase is to bring a new asset into formal existence. This is done through a structured process that ensures good conditions for a first version of the asset, that is approved and ready to put into practise.

The importance of making this process formal is that when informal or unclear assets are introduced, they are most of the time not aligned with other assets where there are dependencies. It also becomes confusing if something is decided or not, causing confusion and wasted time on discussing how to proceed.

This does not mean that it should be bureaucratic and slow. It just means that there should be no doubt if the asset is active and should be followed or not. 

The purpose of the maintain stage is to ensure that the asset provides maximal value during its active time. This is not fire and forget. An asset needs to be maintained constantly due to several reasons: 

• An asset does not become adhered to through a decision alone, it needs to be implemented until no one remembers how to work any other way
• The first version of an asset is seldom the optimal one and needs to be improved to better work in practice
• There are scenarios that can not be foreseen that will require improvements
• Things change, the organisation, the context it works within, the people that work in the organisation, etc. This means that the asset needs constant maintenance and improvements

The maintain phase is a stage that is always ongoing and a good practice is to have planned periods during the year to ensure the it is performed.

The purpose of the decommission phase is to stop working with the asset and ensure it is formally removed from the organisation. At some point in time, the asset might become obsolete, replaced by other asset(s) or irrelevant for the organisation.

Designing and introducing new assets is a common activity and typically engages a lot of people. However reviewing if the new asset replaces other assets or reviewing if an asset still is adds value is seldom done. The consequence of this is that over time there is a confusion of what is the decided way to work, old terms and ways of working live on parallel with new ways of working resulting in confusion and inefficiencies. 

Improving is not only about adding. Removing and simplifying is equally, if not more important. A simple and clean system is much more easy to understand, maintain and improve than a mess of multiple parallel solutions that operate simultaneously. Sometimes it is necessary but the period of time that they operate should be kept at a minimum. This is easiest done by decommissioning the old asset as quickly as possible.