Is force-feeding BIM really a good idea? How about looking at the real cause of the Construction Industry being so sick?

I kind of hung up my official BIM – boots some 18 months ago, though I still respond to the occasional BIM head-hunter enquiring about the status of my employment.

Just to get a reality check, that the global BIM lobbyist and their foot soldiers have not come to see the real light while I was asleep and missed it. (no they have not).

I also use my ‘world class BIM expertise’ daily under the disguise of doing a job of a Design/Project Manager but consider myself to not be an active promoter of the misunderstood art of BIM (real-or made up).

In fact – I am happy to be known as an avid cynic of prescribed BIM approaches, Government and/or other type of large scale mandating of BIM as solutions to the global demise of a deeply sick and hopelessly out of touch Construction Industry.

I have very few people that officially agree with me this question – that keeping ramming down a supposed medicine for a misdiagnosed illness is futile – or saying it plainly, what we know of as a mainstream BIM is really no solution for anything at all and this BIM will not fix the problem of the industry where most people (managers of any type) above those at working the straight ‘coal-face’ (i.e. the doers) are largely incompetent.

The higher you go up the food-chain, the bigger the projects and stakes and the level of incompetence rises too. So increases the arrogance cultivated to hide that incompetence from those that (miraculously) have yet not compromised themselves (like genuinely good clients or sincerely ambitious smart young people early in their AEC careers).

Can’t be that bad. Oh, yes – it can. It is.

But never mind me winging and whining.

Anyone in the ownership of any common sense can see that buildings and other construction related artefacts are regularly produced by the same industry I’m accusing of being terminally ill, instrumented by the people I call incompetent and this magic occurring all over the world, so I must be deeply misguided, naively mistaken or simply mad.

Most likely the last one.

But, never mind me being mad.

I want to use this pair of (admittedly rhetorical) questions from the title of today’s blogpost to publicly put on record, that I will only ever again apply ‘BIM’ as a title to a professional role, attach it to a role description or print it on a business card/digital signature related to my persona when I am especially asked to do it ‘my’ way, pleaded for, almost begged to apply the magic that I (claim to) have to fix parts of construction related projects.

Should not hold my breath for this happening any time soon?

No worries – I can wait.

In the meantime I will carry on with various roles of regular PM/DM (even Architect) jobs and occasionally sprinkle some of ‘my type of BIM magic’ around for (let’s face it), those not really deserving of it.

Just for the fun of it.