
Hello — I am Coach Ritchie. I am the AI assistant for this programme. Ritchie Wingo built me, and your work is marked against the rubric he published; anything that falls below the mark to continue, he reviews himself, because that is the point at which a person needs help rather than a score. I am here for the moments in between, when the steering committee meets on Monday and you want to argue a point through with someone first.
Fifteen sessions, twenty-five minutes a day, three weeks. An asset owner receives the benefit of production and carries responsibilities that remain when the meeting ends, the contractor leaves or a software subscription expires. The question this programme keeps asking is practical: how should leadership decide what to inspect, maintain, repair, replace or retire, and what evidence should justify the decision? AI can help people read records, find inconsistencies and prepare decisions, and you should become a capable, demanding user of it. But buying a tool before defining the decision can simply make an uncertain position look more convincing — and the decision still belongs to you.
Every assignment is about your company and the one unresolved asset decision it owes, and every assignment comes back with a written letter: what holds up and why, and where something is thin, exactly where to look. By Session 15 you will hold a signed 90-Day Intelligent Asset Plan for that decision, with its Asset Decision Record complete and the board measures you will report.
Ask me anything as you work and I will help you think it through, but I will not write your plan for you, I do not give investment, legal or engineering advice, and I switch myself off while you sit a quiz or an exam.
There is nothing to buy and no licence key to redeem. You sign in with your Google account so that your work can be marked and returned to you, your progress page follows you between devices, and your certificate can be issued in your own name.
With your Google account. Name, email, the company you work for and your role — that is the whole enrolment.
Why the asset does not read the presentation, and the six frameworks. Name your company and the one asset decision you will carry.
Twenty-five minutes, then one written assignment. It is marked against a published rubric and comes back as a letter.
You assemble and sign your ninety-day plan, sit the final, and your certificate is issued.
Already started? Open my progress page → · Just looking? Read Week 1 →
This programme assumes you are not an integrity engineer or a data scientist and do not intend to become one. It ends with you able to ask of any asset decision what evidence supports it, what remains uncertain and who has authority to act — and of any AI proposal what decision it improves, what it must never decide, and what evidence shows it worked.
Name who owes the next decision on each material condition, and verify the asset from the field label to the board paper.
Separate observation from interpretation, preserve the uncertainty that could change the choice, and set a deadline for resolving it.
Keep necessary operating conditions out of the budget contest, separate exposure from readiness, and make inspection resolve a decision.
Start reliability from the failure mode, put a response behind surveillance, and plan access, evidence and contingency together.
Require an accepted technical scope before comparing prices, and govern shutdown readiness through evidence, not a date.
Define the future duty, treat obsolescence as an exposure, and keep end-of-life obligations and funding visible.
Authorise a specific use with a workable fallback, and compare only feasible options on a common lifecycle basis with the downside beside them.
Protect the right to challenge, report board measures with definitions, and approve one bounded proof with a day-ninety decision.
| It is written for | It is not written for |
|---|---|
| Executives who own and operate Nigerian energy assets — upstream facilities onshore, in the swamp and offshore, pipelines, gas plants, refineries, terminals and storage | Engineers looking for an inspection procedure, a design calculation or a fitness-for-service method — the book gives none |
| Managing directors and executive and non-executive directors who carry the whole decision and remain accountable for it | Anyone looking for investment, legal or engineering advice, or permission to continue operating a specific asset |
| Asset managers and heads of integrity, maintenance, reliability, operations, engineering, finance, procurement, HSE and technology whose work the decision depends on | Anyone wanting a certificate without writing about a real company |
| Contractors, inspection providers and financiers who serve asset owners and want to see the decision from the owner’s side | Anyone expecting twenty minutes of video and a pass |
This programme does not end in a folder of notes. In Session 1 you name your company and the one unresolved asset decision it owes — a condition, an anomaly or a lifecycle choice — and every session after that writes one section of a single document — your 90-Day Intelligent Asset Plan — around it. By Session 15 you assemble and sign it. Written properly, it is the paper you table at your next executive committee or board meeting.
| Week | Sections you write |
|---|---|
| Week 1 The Ownership Mandate and the Foundations You Cannot Skip | 1. Section 1 — Our company, the one asset decision we will carry, and where AI could help. 2. Section 2 — The required function, who owes the next decision, and the asset verified from field label to board paper. 3. Section 3 — The evidence record, the uncertainty that could change the decision and its deadline. 4. Section 4 — Criticality, dependencies, exposure kept apart from readiness, and the gates outside the budget contest. 5. Section 5 — The inspection the decision needs: method, evidence deliverable and the chain to disposition. |
| Week 2 Intelligence in the Field and the First Lifecycle Choices | 6. Section 6 — The target failure mode, the simpler comparator and the response window. 7. Section 7 — Containment traced to location, assessment and disposition, with a response behind the surveillance. 8. Section 8 — Access, evidence and contingency planned together, and the required service followed through its supporting systems. 9. Section 9 — Eligible options, the accepted technical scope before price, and restrictions with reassessment conditions. 10. Section 10 — Readiness by evidence: the window's work, its clocks, the critical path and the restart decision. |
| Week 3 Lifecycle, Trust, Capital and the Leadership Mandate | 11. Section 11 — The future duty and the end of life: extension gates, obsolescence, retirement obligations and funding. 12. Section 12 — The application governed: owners, permitted use, review, fallback and the acceptance and change record. 13. Section 13 — The capital case: feasible options on a common lifecycle basis, the downside, affordability and the committee checklist. 14. Section 14 — People, contractors and the right to challenge, with the board measures we will report. 15. The signed 90-Day Intelligent Asset Plan. |
This programme is free, and nothing is upsold to you inside it. When you finish, you receive an ERW CommandAsset certificate of completion in your own name — issued on a pass, not on attendance.
| To receive it | What that means |
|---|---|
| Every assignment passed | Sessions 1 to 14, each marked at 70 or above against its published rubric. Work below the mark comes back with what to fix; resubmit and the new mark replaces the old one. |
| The capstone passed | Your signed 90-Day Intelligent Asset Plan, Session 15, marked at 70 or above. |
| The Final Exam passed | Fifteen questions, three of them rebuilt from your own earlier mistakes, at 70 or above. |
The certificate is emailed to the Google address you signed in with. It certifies completion of an ERW leadership programme; it is not a professional licence, an engineering qualification or a university award.
Only people who have finished the programme can write one — the Session 15 capstone passed and the marked Final passed, both recorded by the server rather than by anyone’s say-so. They are shown exactly as written, never solicited and never edited.
One session a day, twenty-five minutes. Each one teaches part of the doctrine and makes you use it on your own company.
Every session ends in a written assignment — a diagnosis, a value case, a pilot design, a plan section. Four hundred to nine hundred words.
Against the rubric printed under the assignment. A written letter comes back, usually within minutes.
Session 15 assembles fourteen sections into one document, then the final exam — three of whose questions are rebuilt from your own mistakes.
No mystery, and no waiting days for a mark. Here is the whole loop.
One document per session — Word or Google Docs — with the first line reading Session: N. Your own company, your own numbers.
Against that session’s published rubric, criterion by criterion. The same rubric every time, for everybody.
Not a score — a letter naming what holds up, what is asserted without evidence, and exactly where to look to fix it.
Your mark joins your progress page and the corrected section goes into your plan, so Session 15 is assembly rather than writing.
An illustration of the letter format, using Session 3’s real rubric.
| Criterion | Awarded |
|---|---|
| Separates observation, interpretation, prediction and acceptance for the student's own decision | 24 / 25 |
| Records evidence with source, date, method, revision and acceptance status, and states its limitations | 19 / 20 |
| Names the uncertainty that could change the decision, what would resolve it and whether that is worth the cost in time | 20 / 30 |
| States the interim position with who sets it and a dated deadline for an explicit decision | 16 / 25 |
Three weeks. Five sessions a week, twenty-five minutes each, at whatever pace your diary allows. Every session ends in one written assignment about your own company, and every assignment becomes a section of your ninety-day plan.
Seven papers, marked the moment you submit, every question returned with the reasoning behind it. Three pop quizzes of five questions, three practice exams of fifteen, and a fifteen-question final. You are never left to guess when to sit one: the session that opens a paper says so, prints the paper beside its assignment, and flags itself on the session tab — and your progress page always names the paper due now. Closed book, no notes, and Coach Ritchie switches himself off while you sit one. Pass mark 70 — and you may resit the practice papers as often as you like.
5 questions · after Session 3
15 questions · after Session 5, closing Week 1
5 questions · after Session 8
15 questions · after Session 10, closing Week 2
5 questions · after Session 13
15 questions · after Session 14, before the final
15 questions · in Session 15
Fourteen sections written one per session, assembled and signed in Session 15: the one asset decision you carry and who owes it, the evidence and the uncertainty that could change it, its criticality and the inspection it needs, the failure mode, containment, access and supporting systems behind it, repair or restriction, shutdown readiness, life extension and retirement, the AI application governed, the capital case, the people and the board measures — with the Asset Decision Record and the ninety days that carry it.
The Intelligent Asset — An Operating Doctrine for AI in Asset Integrity, Reliability and Lifecycle Decisions. A compact executive book for the people who own and operate Nigeria’s energy assets: a reader’s toolkit of six frameworks and seventeen chapters in six parts. It moves from the ownership mandate and the foundations you cannot skip — evidence, criticality and inspection — through intelligence in the field across reliability, pipelines, offshore installations, plants and terminals, to the lifecycle choices of repair, shutdown, life extension and retirement, and back to the executive table through governance, capital, people and the first ninety days.
These 15 sessions teach the doctrine and make you use it. The book carries what twenty-five minutes cannot: every chapter in full with its figures and sources, the Asset Decision Record, board measures with definitions, an AI acceptance and change record, the investment committee checklist, the terms used in the decision room and the numbered sources.
Nothing in this programme depends on buying it. Every session, paper and certificate is free whether you own the book or not.
The whole programme on one printable page — the six frameworks, the Asset Decision Record, the first ninety days and the board measures with definitions. Keep it beside you from Week 1.
The document every assignment is written in — opens in Word or Google Docs, with the first line already correct.
Read the first session before you sign in, and decide for yourself whether the rest is worth three weeks.
Your marks, your letters, your plan sections and your paper results, in one place.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Is it really free? | Yes. No card, no key, no paid tier. The certificate is free too. The book is available separately for anyone who wants the full chapters, figures and sources, and nothing in the programme depends on it. |
| How much time, honestly? | Twenty-five minutes of reading and thirty to sixty minutes of writing per session. Call it six to eight hours over three weeks, and rather more if you do the capstone properly. |
| Do I need a technical background? | No. The technical sessions teach you what to ask, not how to build. You need a real company, a real decision, and the willingness to look at both honestly. |
| Is this specific to energy assets? | Yes. It is written for the people who own and operate Nigerian energy assets — upstream facilities onshore, in the swamp and offshore, pipelines, gas plants, refineries, terminals and storage — and for those who serve them. The technical basis changes with the equipment and service; the obligation to make an informed decision does not. Every session sets a case at the asset in the field — the condition, the inspection, the failure mode, the access, the repair — beside the same decision in the boardroom: the accountability, the capital, the risk accepted and the board pack. |
| Is this investment, legal or engineering advice? | No. It is a decision-governance doctrine for leaders. It gives no design calculation, inspection procedure, fitness-for-service assessment or permission to continue operating equipment, and figures and regulator facts are taught only as the book states and sources them. NUPRC’s 2026 guidelines, for example, are upstream documents, and the book does not extend them to every installation. |
| Can my leadership team do it together? | Yes, and it works better that way — but each person signs in and submits their own work, because the plan is only useful if it is argued over. |
| What if I miss a week? | Nothing happens. There are no cohort dates and no deadlines. Your progress waits for you. |
| Who marks it? | It is marked against R. Wingo’s published rubric, criterion by criterion, the same way every time. Anything that comes out below the mark to continue, he reviews himself before it reaches you. Coach Ritchie helps you think; he does not mark and he does not write your plan. |