The six-step process below, which VFA employs with its clients, helps organizations create consensus about overall business values and priorities, use these to rate the value of capital projects, and ultimately creation of capital budgets that deliver the greatest business value.

A prerequisite to this process is accurate and complete data about the current condition and the renewal and maintenance requirements of your organization's capital assets. Your budget depends on the quality and integrity of this data. This information may be collected by your own facility personnel, outside assessors or a combination of both. But everyone should employ consistent methodology for gathering this data. All stakeholders should also have some level of access to this data through a centralized database, along with the tools to analyze requirements and estimate funding needs, promoting accurate "bottom up" budget projections.

• Step 1: Establish a Team
• Step 2: Create a Common Understanding
• Step 3: Identify Evaluation Criteria
• Step 4: Prioritize Projects
• Step 5: Create the Budget
• Step 6: Communicate the Plan