INSIGHTS

Click the topics below to see posts.

FACILITATION • ASSET MANAGEMENT
PROJECT DEVELOPMENT • ENVIRONMENTAL

FACILITATION

Staying sharp depends on consistently doing the fundamentals well.

From Little League to Board Meetings: Staying Sharp Means Doing the Fundamentals Well

Experience may create the illusion that we’ve moved beyond the fundamentals, but in my work with organizations of all sizes, I see that these basics remain the foundation for effectiveness. They’re easy to overlook, but always essential.

Ethics are the practical foundation for how we make decisions and communicate them to others.

How to Use Ethics to Communicate with the FINESSE Fishbone Diagram

One of the most common pitfalls in technical communication is sliding, often unintentionally, from informing to advocating.

Synergy builds on the principles that shape group behavior when making big decisions. Synergy is the second S in the FINESSE Fishbone Diagram.

How to Use Synergy to Communicate with the FINESSE Fishbone Diagram

Decisions are shaped not by one person’s logic but by the gravitational pull of an inner circle. If you want to communicate effectively in these environments, you must understand Synergy and, more importantly, work with it rather than against it.

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ASSET MANAGEMENT

The two‑thirds rule provides a clear, defensible starting point for planning and forecasting long-term needs. JD Solomon Inc. provides practical solutions.

Mean Life, Service Life, and the Two-Thirds Rule of Thumb

The two thirds rule of thumb emerges from typical Weibull behavior. Mechanical assets often have shape parameters (β) between 2 and 4. When service life is defined at a high reliability threshold—say, the point where 90% or 95% of units are still surviving—the ratio of mean life to service life tends to fall in a narrow band.

RAV works well when we need quick, comparable benchmarks, when evaluating maintenance effectiveness, and when aligning multiple facilities with different histories.

Why Replacement Asset Value Gets Misunderstood … and why it matters most

The most important thing is to develop RAV and avoid over-engineering a simple (and powerful) concept.

JD Solomon Inc. provides practical solutions to align asset value and strengthen your asset management program.

The Top Ten Ways to Express Asset Value

Across engineering, finance, insurance, and operations, at least 10 commonly used expressions of asset value are used in practice. Understanding them reduces confusion and improves decision‑making.

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PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

Water utility consolidations are based on trust.

How to Transform Utility Management Through Smart Consolidation

Taking a business case approach, where options ranging from “status quo” to “do everything (merge), is the best approach. Focus early on higher-level evaluations of financials, infrastructure, human resources, and information technology systems.

Strong communication skills impact project success and contribute to long-term career growth for project managers.

How the FINESSE Fishbone Diagram Improves the Careers of Project Managers

For project managers, focusing on the six essential visuals within the Illustrate bone of the FINESSE Fishbone Diagram® is very helpful.

Systems thinking helps you connect, inform, and build rapport with decision makers. JD Solomon Inc. provides practical solutions for project development and communication.

Systems Thinking Wins Over Decision Makers

The power of systems thinking lies in recognizing that effectiveness comes from integration, not perfection.

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ENVIRONMENTAL

Leaders need to know whether uncertainty is a knowledge gap (fixable) or a natural variability (not fixable). JD Solomon Inc. provides practical solutions for addressing environmental risk and uncertainty.

Environmental Risk and Uncertainty: Eliminating Uncertainty

The distinctions between epistemic and aleatoric uncertainty continue because they clarify what can be reduced versus what must be managed.

Probability is based on our current knowledge of future uncertain events, which always makes probability subjective. JD Solomon Inc. provides practical solutions for environmental risk and uncertainty.

Environmental Risk and Uncertainty: The Role of Subjective Probability

Beware of those who say we should eliminate all subjectivity by using mathematical/quantitative models. At best, the insights from models help reduce some of the subjectivity but will never eliminate it altogether. All models include the subjectivity of the modeler, and even our cherished Monte Carlo simulations require subjective evaluations of the input probability distributions.