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Finally, the organizations are recommended to formulate a clear plan about how to communicate the AM deployment and the other related organizational developments to the employees. Besides, this plan should state how these employees will be involved during the change process. This should help the organizations [ 1 ] to improve the employees’

understanding about AM and AM deployment, [ 8 ] to remove some of their anxiety and

reticence toward AM and to gather the necessary input as part of the bottom-up approach. Furthermore, once the employees are on board, it becomes possible to accelerate.

This study has a few general recommendations:

• Do not bother the employees too much with the many complex and holistic organizational developments and management concepts. This can lead to confusion, misinterpretations and unnecessary anxiety if the exact intentions of the organization are not explained. Instead, the organizations are recommended to group the various organizational developments and focus the communication more on the organization’s

needs and how the employees benefit.

• The managing board and MT will likely play a key role in the communication towards the employees. As stated, they should act as a guiding coalition, promote their visions and stimulate others to act. They could for example do this during central meetings, visit department or team meetings and/or use newsletters. However, they will likely focus on a somewhat high abstraction level. On a personal level, the team managers

should play a key role. They should explain the employees how they are affected by the change process (i.e. “what is in for me”) and how they should contribute.

• To convince the employees and keep their commitment during the entire change process, it is important to demonstrate quick wins during the change process. Some of these can already be derived by taking advantage of the existing initiatives.

• As part of the bottom-up approach, the employees should be involved during the change process. Their needs and the problems they face in their day to day routines should form the input and starting point of the AM deployment. Employees could for example be involved by inviting them to take place in the small consultative groups, by inviting them during information sessions or letting the team managers act as mediators and representatives of their teams.

5.3 Conclusion

Sub-question 3: How do the necessary conditions for the internal strategic alignment in the deployment of asset management manifest themselves in real-life organizations?

As was concluded for both regional water authorities, many necessary conditions for strategic alignment are not fully present. Part of this can be explained by the fact that both organizations only recently started with the formal deployment of AM. Table 5 (p.71) demonstrated the 9 most important constraining factors that obstruct the two organizations in meeting the necessary conditions for strategic alignment.

As demonstrated, the situations are quite similar for the two regional water authorities. The largest difference is the coordination of the AM deployment. The introduction of AM into

Zuiderzeeland’s operations is mainly done bottom-up. Vechtstromen recently started to combine this bottom-up approach with a top-down coordination.

The study observed differences in how AM is deployed for the water system and the wastewater treatment chain. For the wastewater treatment chain, the AM deployment occurs more naturally and more smoothly. This is because of the more favorable characteristics of the physical objects and because the people that manage the waste water treatment already have more experience with elements of AM.

Sub-question 4: How could an organization develop the necessary conditions for the internal strategic alignment in the deployment of asset management if they are not present?

For the two cases, this Chapter proposed 6 main pillars of solutions. These solutions can be executed by the two organizations to tackle the major constraining factors that were summarized in Table 5. This should help them to further develop the conditions that are necessary for internal strategic alignment in the AM deployment. In summary, the recommended solutions are as follows.

1. The authorities can best focus (again) on their organization’s needs and use this to prioritize and clarify the relations between the organizational developments.

2. To give a boost to the change process, the two authorities should clarify the concept AM for the governing bodies, managing board, MT and team managers.

3. The AM deployment and the other related developments would benefit from a top- down coordination, this as an addition to the bottom-up approach.

4. The authorities are recommended to clarify the objective of AM deployment and other related development + include them in the general overarching program + formulate an action plan + develop performance indicators to monitor the developments.

5. Essential within the AM deployment and the other organizational developments is an improved commitment and involvement of the civil service’s top management. Let them act as a clear guiding coalition during the change process and let them actively support and supervise those that are responsible for the top-down coordination. 6. To put the organization into motion, the authorities should develop a clear plan for the