Defensible Decisions Start with Better Structure (Not More Data)

If there’s one word that keeps surfacing in conversations about funding, capital planning, and asset management, it’s defensibility.

Municipal teams are being asked the same questions over and over:

• Why this pipe?

• Why now?

• Why does it rise to the top over everything else?

And while most utilities already have plenty of inspection data to answer those questions, the challenge isn’t the amount of data collected; it’s how that data is structured and maintained for decision making.

The Defensibility Gap

Most sewer inspection programs are doing the heavy lifting:

• CCTV inspections are completed

• Defects are coded

• Reports are generated

But when it’s time to move from inspection to action, that information often lives in:

• PDFs

• Spreadsheets

• Static summary tables

These formats are great for documentation, but they struggle to support defensible decision-making. They tell you what was found, but not always why it matters in a broader system context.

Defensibility breaks down when decision-makers can’t clearly see:

• How condition compares across the system

• Where issues cluster across the system

• Why one pipe rises above another

Structure Changes the Conversation

The most effective planning conversations don’t rely on more inspections or more reports; they rely on better structure.

When inspection data is:

• Standardized and accessible

• Spatially referenced

• Consistently scored

• Connected to existing GIS and asset data

…it becomes much easier to explain prioritization in a way that holds up under scrutiny.

Instead of saying:

“This pipe scored higher than others.”

You can say:

“This segment shows a higher concentration of structural defects, is located in a critical service area, and aligns with our risk-based criteria.”

Same data. Very different conversation.

From Technical Detail to Decision Support

Structured inspection data bridges the gap between technical staff and decision-makers.

It allows utilities to:

• Compare condition across pipes, basins, or neighborhoods

• Tie inspection findings directly to risk and consequence

• Visualize why certain assets rise to the top

That visual and spatial context is often what turns a technical recommendation into a defensible capital decision.

Defensibility Isn’t About Perfection

It’s not about having flawless data or inspecting every pipe at once.

Defensibility comes from being able to confidently answer:

• Why this asset?

• Why this timing?

• Why this investment?

Structuring inspection data to support those answers doesn’t require new software, new standards, or new inspections. It simply requires thinking differently about how inspection results are organized and used.

When inspection data is structured for decision-making, defensibility becomes a built-in outcome, not a scramble at budget time.