The ability to create value from intellectual assets is highly contingent on the management capabilities of individual firms. Being able to harness the creative capacities of teams of people and drive change processes demands that managers not only have an understanding of the relationships between the knowledge domain and the asset domain but also of managing risks to achieve the optimum outcomes required. In this paper the authors consider the nature of asset management as defined in PAS 55, and how theories for unlearning existing practices enables managers to balance current knowledge and innovation practices with new more innovative practices. An example drawn from a case study firm is used to illustrate the concepts discussed. In the case study, PAS 55 is used to define the relationships between the firm’s assets and an IDEF0 model is developed to explain how the firm has managed a project to achieve better asset utilisation.