Hi *|FNAME|*,

One of the most important disciplines in the IMS is making sure we define the investment need before we start defining the Solution.

A common challenge is that an investment starts with an Asset, system or process issue:

• The facility is ageing.

• The system is obsolete.

• The network is at capacity.

These may be important drivers of the investment need, but it is worth asking one further question:
What is this preventing the organisation or service from being able to deliver, sustain or respond to?

That question often moves the discussion from the condition of something to the organisational or service limitation that actually matters.

For example:
Asset-focused:
Our treatment infrastructure is ageing and approaching capacity.

Investment-focused:
Our ability to reliably treat increasing wastewater volumes and loads is diminishing.

The second framing creates much greater strategic choice about how the organisation might respond.

A useful question for your next investment discussion is:
Are we describing the genuine investment need, or have we already started describing the Solution?

I’ve added a practical Problem Definition guide to the Participant Resource Hub to help you test whether a Problem is being framed at the right level. [View the Problem Definition Principles Guide]