Addressing Increasingly Complex Deferred Maintenance Decisions

While colleges and universities have faced maintenance challenges for decades, recent trends have elevated maintenance to a strategic imperative for senior leaders. Beyond tighter budgets and widening funding gaps, most institutions face the dual challenge of replacing or renovating aging buildings while maintaining newer “smart” buildings that require more frequent and complex upgrades.

A huge and growing deferred maintenance backlog is arguably one of the most daunting challenges facing most campuses. While a select few institutions have managed to eliminate (or nearly eliminate) deferred maintenance over time, the majority of these institutions possess unique, hard-to-replicate circumstances that have contributed to their success. Realistically, most institutions must adopt a methodical, slow-and-steady approach to smartly chip away at their backlog over time.

Most institutions should adopt a “turning-the-tanker” approach to addressing deferred maintenance. To help Facilities leaders “turn the tanker” and address increasingly complex deferred maintenance decisions, this publication offers six executive lessons to improve planning, prioritization, and executive communication.

Section 1: Communication

Facilities leaders win senior leader trust and secure capital renewal funding through effective communication strategies, such as using visual aids, breaking down the deferred maintenance backlog into smaller portions, and connecting capital renewal investments to top institutional priorities.

Lesson 1: Communicate capital renewal in a compelling way to build trust and obtain resources

While Facilities leaders fully grasp the scope and scale of the deferred maintenance backlog, other leaders may not recognize the signs of neglect that are often hidden behind walls or underground. As a result, they do not understand the magnitude of the problem, leading them to devote limited institutional resources to other priorities rather than maintenance. By making the problem real and linking it to other strategic priorities, Facilities leaders can increase executive understanding of the deferred maintenance challenge and generate buy-in for additional funding.

The first executive lesson to address deferred maintenance is to communicate capital renewal in a compelling way to build trust and obtain resources. The graphic below shows the three common challenges of communicating capital renewal needs to senior leaders, along with three targeted solutions. The first challenge is that renewal needs are often hidden behind walls, on roofs, or underground. To address this, Facilities leaders must make the problem real by using visual aids that illustrate renewal needs in a tangible way.

Section 2: Data, Assessment, and Prioritization

A crucial step in addressing deferred maintenance is gaining an accurate picture of asset condition to guide project prioritization and capital investment decisions. This section details three lessons on gathering the right condition metrics, collecting data in the most efficient way possible, and weighing condition against strategic importance in the final list of capital projects.

Lesson 2: Choose metrics that support higher-order analyses for capital renewal decisions

As condition data play a major role in project prioritization conversations, it is critical for Facilities leaders to gather metrics that accurately assess campus condition. Yet many Facilities leaders wonder if they are tracking the “right” metrics. No single list of metrics is right answer for all Facilities units, so institutions must determine which metrics will translate into the most meaningful information for their particular campus.

Facilities leaders must assign someone within the department responsibility over the data parameters and the software used to manage them to ensure the collection of data occurs regularly through reliable processes.

Consistency in the collection and measurement of terms from year to year allows for better tracking and analysis over time.

While experienced Facilities leaders might see particular pieces of equipment as unique, data analysis requires categorizing equipment by similarities to have groups from which to extract data. Such labels can include location, function, type, criticality, and age.

Many modern CMMS platforms come with performance trending modules built into the software, with training resources available from the company’s website or representatives. Additionally, some institutions’ IT units have experience implementing similar data structures and may have the capacity to provide advisory or developmental support to Facilities leaders.

Lesson 3: Evaluate benefits of completing condition assessment with consultants vs. in-house team

The third lesson for addressing deferred maintenance is to evaluate the benefits of completing condition assessments with consultants versus in-house teams. The vast majority of institutions conduct facility condition assessments (FCAs), which provide detailed information on condition at the sub-system, building, and campus level. While FCAs provide a substantial amount of data, the challenge is performing these evaluations cost-effectively. The table below describes three options for conducting facility condition assessments, including the advantages, disadvantages, and approximate frequency of each approach across institutions.

The majority (60%) of campuses continue to use a consultant to complete the condition assessment. Their third-party expertise carries the most weight with senior leaders; however, at five to twenty cents per square foot, they are the most costly option. Only 5% of institutions use consultants to train in-house staff on completing the assessment. Though this approach has high upfront costs, it represents a transitional step to in-house assessments, yielding savings in the long-run. Finally, approximately 35% of institutions complete the assessment with in-house staff. At less than two cents per square foot, in-house assessments are the least costly option (though it requires significant staff time). This lesson provides more detailed information and guidance on the three options for completing facility condition assessments.

Lesson 4: Weigh impact of individual capital projects on strategic goals

When prioritizing projects, building condition is typically the most accessible information. However, renewal needs do not always align with institutional strategic priorities, and comparing quantitative condition data (such as FCI) against qualitative factors (such as impact on student success) can be challenging. By weighing the impact of individual projects on strategic goals, Facilities leaders can develop final projects lists that balance maintenance needs with broader institutional priorities.

Prioritization option 1: Elevate a single institutional priority

The first approach to capital renewal prioritization is to elevate a single institutional priority above all others. The two institutions below prioritize capital renewal projects around one strategic goal. First, Elon University focuses primarily on campus curb appeal to drive enrollment growth. Given the large number of competing institutions in the surrounding area, leaders at Elon have consistently prioritized projects that enhance students’ first impression of campus. Elon’s focus on curb appeal has contributed to it’s consistently high university ranking. In 2017, U.S. News & World Report ranked Elon first among master’s-level universities in the South for the fourth straight year.

Prioritization option 2: Gather feedback from academic leaders through multistep process

The second approach to capital renewal prioritization is to integrate academic priorities into the decision-making process. While mapping academic information onto Facilities projects can be challenging, some campuses have overcome this by outsourcing the prioritization exercise directly to academic leaders. For example, the provost at Whitefall University (pseudonym) confidentially prioritized academic departments by expected growth, which Facilities leaders used to develop a mutually prioritized project list. While productive, most academic leaders will be unwilling to undertake such a formal prioritization exercise due to high political risk.

Prioritization option 3: Quantify other strategic considerations to facilitate comparison

The last approach to capital renewal prioritization is to develop ranking systems that incorporate both condition-based and strategic factors into the decision-making process. One tool that clearly articulates inputs and simplifies the prioritization process is Western Illinois University’s (WIU) Strategic Building Renovation Matrix, shown below. WIU’s ranking system, specifically focused on simplifying building renovation decisions across campus, includes ten metrics such as utilization, staff and student needs, and maintenance needs.

Section 3: Planning

Facilities leaders establish flexible short-, mid-, and long-term capital renewal plans that can adapt to changing conditions while continuously chipping away at the deferred maintenance backlog.

Lesson 5: Create adaptable capital renewal plans for 3 short-, mid-, and long-term needs

Since the challenges and goals of capital renewal planning vary across different time frames, Facilities leaders must leverage different strategies to create adaptable renewal plans for short-, mid-, and long-term maintenance needs. Especially in an erratic funding environment, creating capital renewal plans that clearly articulate short- and long-term project priorities ensures Facilities optimizes limited capital allocations.

The fifth lesson is to create adaptable capital renewal plans for short-, mid-, and long-term needs. The graphic below illustrates that the challenges and goals of capital renewal plans vary across different time frames. In the short term, Facilities units are sometimes caught unprepared to quickly execute projects when funding unexpectedly arises, resulting in lost opportunities and distrust from senior leaders. To ensure last-minute funds are spent strategically, Facilities units should maintain a list of “shovel-ready” projects to execute on short notice.

Lesson 6: Get buy-in to take the worst spaces offline

Rather than capital investment, the sixth lesson for addressing deferred maintenance centers on taking the worst spaces offline. All Facilities leaders recognize the value of principled divestments to the broader deferred maintenance strategy. However, decommissioning space on campus is nearly always an unpopular and politically tenuous decision. Even when senior leaders understand the value, they may be unwilling to publically support building demolition or decommissioning for political reasons. This final lesson provides strategies to help Facilities leaders win buy-in for taking the worst spaces offline.