Frequently Asked Questions

What signals indicate a post-secondary institution needs facilities management consulting?

Common signals include chronic operational firefighting, recurring service complaints, failed or negative facilities audits, leadership turnover within the FM division, budget pressure combined with rising service expectations, negative media coverage of facilities issues, and FM teams that are consistently reactive rather than planned. These are typically symptoms of structural misalignment rather than individual performance problems.

What does Executive FM Consulting do?

Executive FM Consulting helps universities, colleges, and polytechnics in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland diagnose and redesign the structural conditions affecting facilities management performance, service stability, organizational effectiveness, and infrastructure execution. Founder Grant Sommerfeld brings 17 years of experience as a Chief Facilities Officer across healthcare, municipal government, and higher education.

What is a Facilities Management diagnostic?

A facilities management diagnostic is a structured assessment used to identify the operating, governance, organizational, and workload conditions affecting facilities performance, institutional reliability, and infrastructure risk exposure. Executive FM Consulting's Institutional Operating Assessment (IOA) is a focused diagnostic designed specifically for post-secondary facilities management organizations.

Why do Facilities Management organizations become reactive?

Facilities management departments become reactive when governance structures, decision rights, workload prioritization, and operating expectations are misaligned. Chronic firefighting is frequently a symptom of structural overload rather than workforce failure. The organization is working hard inside a system that was never designed to keep pace with institutional complexity.

What is Facilities Management organizational effectiveness?

Facilities management organizational effectiveness refers to the ability of a facilities organization to deliver reliable outcomes through clear governance, aligned decision-making, manageable workload structures, defined accountability, and stable operating systems. When these elements are misaligned, even well-resourced and committed teams struggle to perform consistently.

What kinds of problems can the work address?

Engagements may address issues such as deferred maintenance escalation, service instability, workload overload, unclear accountability, prioritization failures, leadership transition, governance friction, operational coordination challenges, customer frustration, role ambiguity, and operating model redesign.

Does the work only apply to large organizational transformation projects?

No. The methodology can be applied to both focused operational concerns and broader organizational challenges. Some institutions engage Executive FM Consulting to address a specific issue or provide diagnostic clarity before determining whether broader changes are necessary.

What is an Institutional Operating Assessment (IOA)?

An Institutional Operating Assessment (IOA) is a focused diagnostic that identifies the structural conditions driving instability in a post-secondary facilities management organization. It evaluates performance, governance, organizational alignment, decision rights, and role clarity to establish the root causes of operational strain — producing a clear, evidence-based picture of what needs to change and where to begin.

What is an Operating Model Assessment and Roadmap?

An Operating Model Assessment and Roadmap (OMAR) is a comprehensive eight-step consulting process that builds on diagnostic findings to design the future-state operating model for a facilities management organization. It defines the optimal structure, aligns processes and governance, and delivers a prioritized, sequenced implementation roadmap with clear accountabilities and timelines.

What makes this approach different from traditional consulting?

Traditional consulting approaches often focus on organizational charts, benchmarking, staffing levels, or technical recommendations in isolation. Executive FM Consulting focuses on how governance, workload, decision-making, operating structures, and organizational conditions interact to shape operational outcomes over time.

Is this primarily a technical facilities assessment?

No. While technical conditions matter, most recurring operational problems are influenced by organizational and governance conditions that shape how work is prioritized, coordinated, and executed. The methodology focuses on the operating system surrounding Facilities Management, not only the physical assets themselves.

Why does deferred maintenance continue to grow?

Deferred maintenance growth is often influenced by governance decisions, prioritization failures, fragmented capital planning, and operational overload. Financial constraints matter, but institutional decision structures frequently determine whether backlog risk becomes manageable or systemic. Addressing deferred maintenance requires operating model clarity, not just additional funding.

What does a successful engagement look like?

Successful engagements produce greater operational clarity, improved alignment between leadership expectations and operational reality, stronger prioritization and accountability, reduced organizational friction, and more stable and reliable execution under pressure.

How does an engagement with Executive FM Consulting work?

Engagements typically begin with a Discovery Call to align on context, priorities, and scope. Most clients start with an Institutional Operating Assessment, which provides an evidence-based diagnosis of structural conditions before any redesign work begins. Engagements are practical, sequenced, and designed to work within the institution's existing capacity and constraints — not to overwhelm teams already operating under pressure. 

How much of my own time will be required?

We understand how busy it gets in facilities management and will adjust our activity to align with your availability.  Obviously we need to spend time together upfront to fully understand the situation and expectations and we'll need access to staff and stakeholders to gather information, observe work as it happens, and so on. These activities will be conducted virtually and on-site and include meetings, interviews, surveys, focus groups, and site tours.

How does pricing work?

All engagements are performed at a fixed cost quoted up front for budget certainty.  Costs will vary depending on the scope. Clients can also seek support of issues they've identified.  In these situations a fixed-price quote will be prepared upfront based on the work required.

Are there satisfaction guarantees?

Yes. We'll keep working until you're 100% satisfied. Period.