What drives what…BIM as an enabler?

One very much-liked claim of BIM promoters is that BIM enables designing architects to be better at what they do.

Like the good old ‘Red bull’ ad, they imply ‘it gives you wings’, ‘unleashes the creativity from within’, lets you fly freely without the constrains of the drawing, paper based or digital!

They often use Frank Gehry, the poster boy of the ‘brilliantly creative’ as an example of someone that made those whimsical, awkwardly beautiful buildings he is famous for, purely thanks to BIM.

I find this interesting, having watched a documentary on Gehry numerous times.

For me, despite of all the wizardly around him, he looked most comfortable working with pieces of shiny paper and folded-up cardboard.  

And possibly ‘in his mind’, like many truly good architects have done for centuries and probably still do.

But, let’s put Gehry and other ‘iconic’ architects aside and look at the ones closer to home.

I’ve been involved with a project for a year now that had ‘obviously’ been designed using a digital model.

Not a bad thing on its own, had the designers taken the model ‘all the way’ and ensured full coordination between various disciplines and documents. They did not do this – an issue and its consequences I will not discuss here, for obvious reasons.

There is however a question I have been asking myself while looking at the ‘ins and outs’ of the project that has ‘public good’ relevance:

Have the architects been ‘using’ the capabilities of the digital modelling tool to enable them to come up with the ‘weird and wonderful’ or has the model instead been driving them and the design into some risky areas normally they would not go to?

Next, the follow-on, more generic questions:

Can the ease of making credible looking models of yet-to-be-built buildings distract designers from doing proper due diligence on constructability?

Can the way models behave possibly encourage unconscious complexity of forms going well beyond practical?

Are the models really able to tempt, lure, and seduce the designers into dangerous territories?

Make them use angles, twists, curves and steps when cleaner, simpler, straighter would do the same or make it better?

I know, this line of thought could lead to opening the ‘can of worms’ about  design styles, aesthetics, client preferences etc…

But, it is not my objective to stir up that dust-cloud just now –

I am genuinely interested by the relationship between the toolset-the user- the end design.

Another example:

I can use it a bit more freely since it is public and with pictures on the net, although not yet constructed.

There is an amazingly ambitious roof-shell designed for ‘a’ villa on an artificial island that is definitely a collaborative brainchild of a creative (young?) designer and a faceless surface modeller.

For a bit of fun (again without questioning beauty or appropriateness of the design) I looked at the scale of the thing and made a mental collection of question of buildability.

To give a good understanding of the true size of the structure – I placed a car and a person alongside.

And for those that like citing manufacturing as the example to follow with AEC processes, I enlarged the V-Dub 7.5 times to fit under the shroud.

                                                                                                                                                                                      

Idealist BIM-mers will tell me to stop being so negative and let ‘designers push the boundaries of their imagination’ with whatever tools they wish, as only then will true masterpieces happen and BIM tools reach their rightful potential .

A bit like an ambulance driver that has seen too many sad results of irresponsible speeding, I can only repeat what I said numerous times before:

BIM is as much a weapon as it is a tool.  Potent and dangerous.

Handle it carefully and with respect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu9orvtStdY

Sketches of Frank Gehry is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Sydney Pollack and produced by Ultan Guilfoyle, about the life and work of the Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketches_of_Frank_Gehry

http://www.archea.it/en/meravigliosa-island/

Disrupting Evolution and The Tortoise and the Hare

So often was I told to be ‘ahead of my time’ over the last 20 years, I almost got to believe in it myself.

The flattering concept certainly helped me keep on fighting the ‘war’ that did not seem to progress into spitting out clear winners and losers, just ‘second bests’ on both sides.

This idealistic image of a revolutionary fighter must have blinded me to the fact that the other side really could not care less about my theories, especially not while they were set to make as much ‘hay’ as they possibly could, since the sun was shining upon them.

Must have reached a new level of maturity in my life, as I now clearly see that what I was practicing then (and am still now) was not ‘revolutionary’ but a desperate attempt to keep ‘evolution’ on track.

An evolution, that would have helped an industry, mature and well-developed over a long history make good use emerging new tools to become more productive and better performing across the board, had it had the chance.

For a long time the industry had been split into two groups: those that consider themselves to be pro BIM practitioners – a tiny minority, and those that act at best BIM neutral – (read: could not give a toss if it is 2D/4D-25D) – a large majority.

I used to define this phenomenon of the industry tearing up along the line of BIM as ‘it does not pay to do a good job when the industry plays along gambling rules’.

Still, for quite a while I had not quite recognise just what an uneven fight this really was, of pro-evolution BIM-mers against the majority set to disrupt the process and retain the bizarre, non-sustainable status quo that bread shoddy work practices and short term gains.

At the end, curiously enough, it was the ‘other side’ that clarified to me, what was going on.

Suddenly, and almost overnight – many of those non-BIM-believers that managed to repeatedly shrug off everything BIM, without getting penalized in any way, realised that the ‘wind had changed’ blowing some clouds in front of the ‘sun’ that was so generously warming them for such a long time.

Still, they could not just turn around and say – ‘hey, you BIM (VC and the like) guys, you were right all these years’… no, they could not, of course.

They could also not admit to letting an entire industry erode to the levels of (technically) skill-less manipulators and knowingly be party to it turning into a speculators controlled circus.

How could they?

Instead, they had to swiftly find a ‘revolutionary idea’ that would fix all the problems now bubbling up:

A badly performing, sluggish industry.

The no longer easy to hide image of anti-innovation management.

A fragmented and hostile workforce.

A bleak looking balance sheet.

 A disinterested young generation and resulting difficulties in finding new supplies of ‘doers’.

Luckily for them, they did not have to look far and long – there it was: BIM!

So cool and innovative, so green and LEED, so OM and FM so IPD and lean!   

Sure guys, go for it!

I’ll keep grinding at my slow-evolutionary pace….

Grilled Salmon in Grape Leaves and should the UK Governments’ dabble in BIM?

When a person has been working with BIM for a long time – s/he is likely to develop the habit of extensive use of allegories.

Having also fallen a victim to this phenomenon, I can only explain its lure as a less painful alternative to trying to describe relatively complex-concepts, over-and-over again, relying purely on the badly defined and highly limited field-specific jargon that is on offer.

For example, when I explain the difference between ‘informative’ and ‘instructive’ DRAWINGs I usually still get somewhere…

but, when I try to apply the same concept to digital models – I almost always draw a blank.

So, here is my analogy I use on ‘informative’ and ‘instructive’- digital models:

I ask people to visualise an expertly prepared, high quality dish!

(say a ‘Grilled Salmon in Grape Leaves with Tomato-Raisin Relish’);

This, then I say, is the equivalent of a fully defined design for a building

(i.e. the client – via the designers knows exactly what the dish will need to look like, taste like, smell like, feel like etc. etc…)

If this client then provides to an ‘unrelated chef’ a representation of this dish (building design) for the purpose of obtaining a proposal for the preparation of a dish equivalent to the ‘designed’ one this process is pretty similar to an AEC tender;

The representation can be a picture (2D) with labelled explanations on what is what, a 3D digital model of it with metadata included on each component (3+Ds) or a copy of the dish itself…

And no matter how good a quality these representations were, without a recipe, these would be ‘just’ ‘informative’ models or drawings/pictures and offer no certainty that the replica will indeed be of the same condition.

A recipe accompanying this dish (again can be in many formats, written, drawn, recorded as a Youtube video) is what will turn the ‘informative model’ into an ‘instructive’ one, making it much more straight forward to scope-, price-, plan for.

Not a guarantee for quality but a contractually much safer bet for the client.

In the 1990s AEC environment ‘explicit instructions’ were out of fashion ‘performance specification’ was the norm;

The promoters of the approach claimed, it was best to leave everything to contractors to figure out, pricing and then building jobs from loosely drawn concept designs.

They validated their approach by identifying contractors to be the ones to best know their ‘means and methods’, i.e. the true masters of their trades!

One can argue similarly, that in the dish-proposal, COMPETENT chefs would just as easily figure out what needed to be done, how and when and should be unnecessary as well as counter-productive to constrain them with overly ‘prescriptive recipes’.

Yet practice shows that this is unlikely to work – ambiguous scopes, lose instructions lead to paralysed projects more often than not. Imagine 2-3 subcontractors working from performance specifications trying to simultaneously install wall/facade/joinery systems that have no clear, unambiguous ‘skeletons’ given to them to work from. Even preparing shop-drawings would easily turn into a never-ending game of chasing each other’s tails, let alone work on site.

On the other side, it does not need to be all-or-nothing, between whether clients should prescribe or describe.

Offering ‘chefs’ (or in the AEC equivalent contractors/subcontractors) the option to come up with ‘as good/or better’ work alternatives that will still match the specs of the desired outputs by drawing on their own specific knowledge can be extremely useful for all.

However, substitution needs to be carefully managed and preceded by clear, clean, unambiguous recipes forming an explicit baseline to work from.

The company VICO has long ago figured out that ‘recipes’ can be useful to describe the non-graphical qualities of the metadata in their AEC projects.

While their recipes were initially created for the purpose of time/cost scheduling by the contractor there exists the possibility to expand them further into including ‘other instructions’ like directives on manufacture or installation.

This is at least one toolset that is able to be developed to meaningfully serve ‘instructive models’ should there be a real demand for them and I know of attempts made by various other software vendors.

So, it is safe to assume that mandating for standardised, ‘instructive models’ by any AEC client is a totally valid and in time practically feasible idea! 

In line with that thought, looking again at the UK Government’s initiatives I ask again:

Should the UK Government, as a large building owner prescribe how its buildings are designed and created?

Absolutely.

Should it be highly specific on the deliverables expected from the various providers?

Absolutely.

Is it heading in the right direction with the way it is mandating BIM?

Absolutely NOT.

To close off my argument I’ll return to the ‘dish’ analogy:

The UK Government is currently prescribing the spoons, the knives, the spatulas its ‘building chefs’ must use.

Oh yes, and the kitchens they are to operate in, down to the floor tiles and the specs of the ovens.

But, no word on the need of ‘instructive models’ or simply called: recipes.

As if assuming that those tasked to build-off these ‘mandated’ (information) models could easily reverse-engineer the information without the need for the instructions.

An extremely brave assumption, that is.

Understanding the difference between ‘informative’ and ‘instructive’ DRAWINGs and mandating for the second NOW would be a good first step and definitely a prerequisite to dabbling into a highly ambitious BIM approach.

Note: in this post I ignored the many challenges that the process of ‘getting a viable design together’ – or if you like, defining the ‘dish’ (building) poses in the first place, not because this issue is less relevant to the topic but because in the scheme of things, it is still less damaging:

i.e. consultants are generally still more capable to design and describe their buildings then meaningfully instruct others on how to build them.

(Design & Build schemes have their own ‘extra’ flavourings to bring into this picture too, I left them out to keep the argument as simple as possible);

Sample recipe from:

http://www.coastalliving.com/food/best-salmon-recipes-00414000070319/page9.html

The Construction Industry Council (CIC)’s Protocol on building information modelling (BIM) is out, and the news is ALL GOOD!

I wish. Or more precisely, they wish.

They, being the CIC, the ‘architects’ of this document and its sisters, the various guides and ‘best practice’ manuals.

Also the authors of close-to-3000 links that Google offered up as a response to my inquiry on the topic.

Admittedly, I have not checked them all out individually, but the consensus is there (again) –

BIM as described by CIC is here to stay, they have the best recipes on how to do it, no worries regarding insurers, trust them…

Well’ let’s look at this insurer issue again!

What the supporting guide says is this:

“…So, the first time you enter into a contract which utilises level 2 BIM, make contact with your PI broker to ensure that they (and your insurers) are comfortable with what level 2 BIM involves and that there are no policy terms which could cause problems.

For the overwhelming majority of consultants, this will not be a particular issue and no insurance market with whom we have spoken has given any indication that level 2 BIM gives rise to significant concerns.

Similarly, no insurer has indicated that any particular “endorsement” or policy modification is required to note this activity, which although novel, is not sufficiently different from the norm to warrant any significant affirmative action from insurers….”

Maybe things are truly much better in UK than in the rest of the world I’ve been working in over the last 2.5 decades.

Maybe I’m looking at things the wrong way, from the wrong end or just being unnecessarily negative – but let’s just examine the above statement in the context of a ‘real project’ and to make it even easier, let’s assume we are operating on Level 0 (CAD drawings!) of the BIM Maturity Chart;

(i.e. what is currently industry practice)

Consider a fairly typical project:

I am the architect of a medium sized apartment building (8 stories high, 12 apartments/ floor – 100 apartments all together, including a couple of penthouse units)

As part of my IFC document-set I provide to the contractor CAD files showing the outlines of the slabs of all of the floors.

The contractor receives these CAD files and distributes them between various impacted subcontractors as well as uses them to prepare own shop drawings.

There are no figured dimensions; each party is free to ‘use’ the ‘model’ as needed.

This is excellent: In contrast to current everyday practices where often 20+ different disciplines ‘run-around’ each other’s shop drawings to find some approved physical anchors to fix their own products to – everyone will use the architect’s drawings and work in parallel.

Major savings in time and cost on offer and we are only talking Level 0 BIM!

Pull that up to Level 2 and the savings will be enormous!

Or, will they?

We could ask a number of practicing architects to run past their PI-insurer the idea that from now on, they will provide no dimensioned drawings, just ‘Level 0 BIM/CAD’ files for construction.

Would the insurers really say, ‘please, be my guest? After all, it is all in line with the CIC protocols’…

Or would they rather be laughing their heads off instead?

Feel free to call me an anti-innovation, obnoxious, party pooper.

But also, why not treat me to an explanation on, how is this idealistic, dogmatic and rose-tinted way of looking at BIM going to help anyone, anywhere doing real AEC projects?

How will it support a single contractor to accept a digital file (albeit at Level 0) provided by a consultant and use it without the worry of being sued from 3 different directions for ‘interpreting’ it wrong?

Or, even better, how will it encourage even one consultant to stop producing ‘masses of drawings by weight’ (soft and/or hard version) and take full responsibility for their design and outputs?

Why will mandating BIM do nothing to improve communication between AEC parties on projects...

...and are there alternative approaches available that might?

Many problems of poorly executed AEC projects can be traced back to uncoordinated documentation.

The blame for the latter is usually assigned to ‘inadequate communication’ between the practitioners of different disciplines and in turn the tools they use.

Bringing BIM into this, promoters of the ‘new’ BIM-approach tend to build-up their arguments based on the theory previously described and propose, that within similar circumstances ‘superior tools’ will make the SAME practitioners communicate superbly producing extraordinarily good, coordinated documents.

All else staying equal, they imply, changing the toolset will make the results significantly better.

I see this as a case of arguing from a false premise.

While the reasoning might sound totally credible to the hundreds of thousands of BIM-enthusiast of the global AEC, that are spreading it like a mantra, for me it makes little sense.

First, it attempts to re-interpret history, to cover up for other, significantly bigger issues that are holding back the industry, like widespread incompetence of its professionals and gambling-like environments for delivering projects...

It suggests that for thousands of years before BIM (and CAD!) AEC related professional-people due to their lack of access to these ‘superior tools’ were unable to communicate and deliver clash-free, coordinated buildings.

Oh, no it does not say that! – one might be tempted to counter-argue.

You can’t compare the two eras, things have changed drastically; buildings are more complex, markets more competitive...

Blah-de-dah...the works...

OK then, what if, due to some weird magic, a generation of engineers, architects, construction managers and builders of the past turned up now and we could assign them the tasks of delivering our ‘buildings of more than ever complexity’ – would they really be paralysed, unable to perform due to lack of CAD or BIM skills? Unlikely;

What I know from historical research, a lot of them would get on with the job and do it properly, no matter of what toolsets they had at hand.

Some would use their old and tried communication methods; others learn the new ones....

The problem is not in the tools, it is in the people, an entire industry-wide group of people that have lost (or never acquired in the first place) the ability to deliver projects successfully.

There ARE exceptions of course too, exceptional individuals working in the AEC, teams of them, even companies, but let’s not get bogged down with them on this particular issue, because they are a minority by far and are usually not the ones that set the direction for the rest to follow.

Unfortunately.

My reading of the industry stands as:

The SAME practitioners that operated poorly in CAD environments will not operate well in BIM environments.

In fact, I can bet my last dollar that they would-have operated even worse in the pre-CAD environments.

Most likely, would’ve never survived under those ‘traditional’ conditions...

In my opening question, I hinted to a belief that there could be alternatives to mandating BIM that have the potential to achieve major improvements in the performance of the industry.

I’ll write about them soon and the ‘fluffy post’ from a couple of weeks ago is a good example of one.

Gaudi’s world poster:

http://www.barcelonaprints.com/gaudeng2.html

Zero Fluff Policy (ZFP) – an alternative to the British Government’s way of mandating BIM on AEC projects

The British Government got it all wrong with regards to its plan to use BIM to fix-up its ailing AEC industry.

Admittedly, they weren’t exactly calling the industry ‘ailing’; neither where are they labelling BIM specifically as a ‘fix up-tool’, but that is what I read between the lines of both the original Strategy Paper published in 2011 and the "Pipeline for Growth" report put out at the end of 2012.

Most of BIM commentators, even those a bit remote from that particular market and ones that are normally prepared to be a bit cynical of ‘artificially pumped up BIM hype’ appear to find this government’s actions to be all positive.

Their comments echo the official mantra with its coats of sugar, then they add their own truckload of PC type encouragement: how every step in the right direction counts, how time will tell, how the proof will be in the pudding, how one must not discourage the proactive governments by criticising them, how absolutely fabulous and brave they are and… anyway, why get bogged down with the details when top experts in the field are publically declaring that the British BIM is the best in the world already…

(references available if anyone IS interested in the details)…

Time will tell I agree, how silly, ineffective, pompous and arrogant this approach is (was) but it will take years, decades even – thanks to the fact that the wheels of the global (and especially big-business) AEC grind even slower than those of justice systems, often quoted.

So why wait for the grinding to be fully completed and the ashes of failed BIMs finally get scattered over the corpses of many, at present still yet-to-be built public buildings?

Instead why not be BOLD NOW and try out something that I guarantee will make a positive difference to the industry and deliver results within 12 months of a launch?

And just to make it more palatable for those that like to be PRESCRIPTIVE on the subject of HOW as opposed to the WHAT, this is a highly prescriptive approach.

I call it the xxx Government’s

(or any public/ private AEC client that is

now/or intending in the future to consume the services of the AEC industry)

Zero Fluff Policy (ZFP)

ZFP is built on a set of highly prescriptive requirements on how project information should be managed (by all info originators and/or editors, like design consultants, main and subcontractors) on (any) the AEC job:

RULES:

1/ PDF – paper-sheet based and formatted, traditionally labelled, revision controlled, clouded drawings will be used for all communication between all parties and at all of the times, regardless of the stage of the project and/or participants involved.

2/ The numbers of drawings in the system will be strictly (and drastically) limited and policed relentlessly.

3/ All drawings will be managed electronically on a web based, fully searchable system. All drawings will have meta data attached to aid search;

4/ No written specifications will be allowed, everything will fit on the limited number of drawings (typically no project will produce more than 100 drawings; Absolute, mega project may go up to 250);

5/ No duplication of information will be tolerated, any discrepancy in information supposedly coming from one source found, will be rejected immediately and the originator penalised heavily.

6/ All drawings will be fully coordinated and buildable at any time, even at early stages of the project taking into account detail levels appropriate for design development. All drawings issued will always be of IFC quality, labelled such and an individual to take responsibility for this by a signature.

7/ The said individual will be made aware by the employing company that mistakes within the IFC documents will be traced back to him (or extremely unlikely, her) no matter how many companies he/she changes to escape being accountable for the flow on impacts those mistakes cost the project once construction begins.

8/ All drawings will be audited regularly (weekly) by an Independent BIM Authority and their comments forwarded to drawing authors. Immediate response will be required by all affected. Failure to respond in time or any repeated offence will be punished by dismissal of the entire company from the project.

9/ All participants will be contractually bound to pay SILD (Substandard Information - Liquidated Damages) – and these will be assessed monthly (based on failures to meet any of the requirements falling under points 1 – 5);

10/ SILD will be deducted from progress payments or if they turn out to be higher than progress payments due, from a bond provided by all contracted project participants at the outset of the project;

11/ SILD collected will be split into 3 equal parts and distributed monthly: 1 third to the IBA (Independent BIM Authority) agent on the project for work well done; 1 third to the client representatives on the project for accepting this crazy policy and 1 third shared out in the form of cream-doughnuts to regular citizens walking past the project in question;

12/ The acronym ‘BIM’ and anything associated with it will be exclusively used by those employed by the Independent BIM Authority; Any unauthorised and careless use of the term (or its derivatives) will be punished by dismissal.

You may want to comment on this hair-raising idea by joining this group:  E !BIM GROUP

This platform of alternative BIM views also allows you to share your own, inspiring, exhilarating, far-out or just generally provocative ideas on this topic.

To all the prima-donnas of the BIM world: Welcome to my Group!

Labelling me a prima-donna did it!

Call it a ‘coming out’ of sorts but when I looked up the meaning of it…

(‘A very temperamental person with an inflated view of their own talent or importance.’)…

I thought, that’s it.

Time to set up a Group for BIM prima-donnas, like me… And, you know what?

If the membership stays at ‘1’ forever, I don’t give a toss…

I named the group E! BIM Group, where ‘E’ stands for ‘extraordinary’.

It is extraordinary, first, because it is set up to provide a refuge, a bunker to recover for ostracised BIM practitioners of ‘non-mainstream BIM-witchcraft’  that arrogantly enough still believe to be doing something good, positive, revolutionary, exceptional in fact!

It is extraordinary also, because it will not bow to the gods of ‘ordinary BIM’ that preach the forever-going on mantra of:

….LODs and national BIM standards and object libraries and CAD/BIM systems and BIM implementation plans and...clash detection of course...and… authoring programs…

Yet are unwilling to question global AEC corruption, incompetency to deliver projects, widespread and large-scale fraud, the sacred role of the drawing, mega-consultancies that set the rules…

It is extraordinary mainly, because ordinary BIM (as it is commonly known) does not work, has never worked and never will….

So, here is a platform to freely explore the alternatives.

There are alternatives! Welcome to my Group!


E-BIM-Group

With the UK Government mandating that all public sector projects will be delivered using BIM by 2016….

…Starts another email… A second like this, this week.

And one in many that I receive these days as various poor AEC vendor-souls try to enhance their market-share by clinging onto this rickety bandwagon…

No one knows what it means exactly, but most like it.

They can spell ‘BIM’, surely they can make advantage out of a regulatory-move like this somehow….

I know what it means exactly and I do not like it.

I agree, that a government as a building owner has the responsibility to ensure buildings are created in the best possible way for their owners; They need to get their ‘taxpayers’ the best value for money while adhering to all sorts of technical and social standards.

In order to get the best results, they are entitled to describe the outcomes in extremely high detail and be extremely demanding on what they will pay for or not.

They can also ask, that any end result (a building) is also accompanied by another, digital version of itself (‘as built’ – OM/FM ready model) and again be as demanding about its qualities as they see appropriate.

A bit like asking for a miniature remote controlled Hummer to be delivered when the real new one comes too.

Or a virtual, digital one of the said machine. No problem with this.

But, on what basis can a democratically elected government prescribe how the particular Hummer it is ordering for the stakeholders is made (to the last screw) without meddling with ‘means-and-methods’ of the delivery process itself knows so little about, as well as skewing up the market?

And a big market, that is.

One can think of similar interfering somewhat justified at the ‘production end’ of supply chains when sustainability is of concern, growing and supply of GM food, exploitation of child-labour or horse meet sold dressed up as beef.

But, constraining a large part of a chunky market to only those that will use only certain tools and only in certain way to achieve the results that are far removed from the tools themselves is dodgy.

It stops innovation, promotes corruption and works against the end user/payer of the bills.

Putting aside the professional/ethical reservations I have with this move, how practical is it at all?

How would the same voting public look at a government legislating, that from 2016 all legal/court hearings where ‘a’ citizen is involved and/or has some sort of a stake-in must be fully conducted in Latin.

No one speaks Latin at the prosecution side, hardly anyone at the defence end – but that will not stop us implementing it at all!

We just have to start somewhere, quickly create a ‘modern’, much more palatable Latin than the old, real one and give a free range to everyone to teach/learn.

Note to myself: must learn Latin by 2016.

Who is qualified to select/hire competent senior BIM managers (heads/directors) for AEC companies?

This post is for HR people doing (or considering to get into) the recruiting of BIM-people for strategic, senior BIM roles within AEC companies.

It includes a very simple message and an easy to use tool.

Success is 100% guaranteed.

The message is this:

1.       Currently and globally there are very few people that are properly qualified to identify, assess, rank and recommend people that may become good strategic BIM leaders with the right training and support.

2.       There are altogether only a handful of good, senior level, strategically clued-up BIM ‘operators’ off-the shelf existing worldwide.

3.       Equally, there are similarly tiny numbers of top executives wanting a strategically placed BIM person high level in their company for the RIGHT reasons.

This message offers two additional lessons to note:

BAD NEWS:

The likelihood of an HR person operating within AEC to be from group one (1) and to be given the opportunity to pair up representatives from the other two (2 and 3) is extremely low.

GOOD NEWS:

See above;

Because of the majority of group ‘number  3’ in the message above is extremely well established and strong in the field, you can place just about anyone in the position that has ‘BIM’ in its name or description as long as you use the tool described below correctly.

What you need to do (this is the tool):

1/ check that the client is definitely not an ‘enlightened, good 3’ – again, extremely unlikely but they do exist…so just to be on the safe side;

2/ ask for the serving CAD manager, BIM coordinator, incumbent visualizer, engineering manager, (or equivalent director, if the role is senior enough) to do the interviewing;

3/ do a good check-up on the weaknesses of the interviewer (start with the software packages that the company is ‘supposed to be using’ and how long have they been in their position);

4/ select a candidate that has moderate experience in the aforementioned software but is timid and will not challenge the interviewer, even if the role is on paper more senior than his/hers;

5/ sit back and enjoy your commission.

for further reading on a topic relevant to this one, check out my previous blogpost:

http://debunkthebim.blogspot.com/2013/01/let-me-spell-this-out-for-you-footnote.html

cartoon from here:

http://baloo-baloosnon-politicalcartoonblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/army-recruitment-cartoon.html

Answer this question quickly! What is worse: incompetency or fraud?

It is extremely likely that your first-impulse response to my question would be that of ‘fraud’.

People tend to feel pretty black-and-white about this question;

few would even question the question before obliging with an answer.

Given the time to mull over it, would you change or qualify your response?

Would it depend on the context, circumstances, people involved?

Would you judge it differently in a personal situation than considering what happens at your workplace? Would the scale of ‘offending’ impact on your judgement? Your relationship to the perpetrators?

Would you tolerate a little bit of fraud and a lot of incompetency or would it be the other way around?

I’ve been grappling with this question for some time, even more since a number of people in high-management positions have declared to me that any ‘evidence of fraud’ is of much more interest to them than stuff that is to do with ‘incompetency’ within their organisation.

And the higher you go, the answer becomes more and more in favour of the ‘fraud’, a negative sort of way.

But, do these two types of ‘qualities’ really sit on two opposite sides of ‘a’ spectrum or do they at times come scarily close to each other?

Can a high level of ‘incompetency’ within an organisation be classified as ‘fraud’ as well?

Is it really so much better to lead a company incompetent to do its business where people are on the surface ‘honest’, than, say a company that plays a bit on the dodgy side but is performing brilliantly and making a lot of money for the shareholders?

This logic seems too much at odds for what I observe as general behaviour of large companies and their mid-to-top level managers.

Now, you may wonder what all this has to do with BIM?

Quite a lot, really!

Being good at BIM makes one highly sensitive to detecting incompetency within an AEC company, which in turn gets one into trouble with those that knowingly cover up for it;

(and act fraudulently judged by the BIM-mer);

Speaking ‘BIM’ at a professional level is not unlike ‘seeing’ through people or reading their thoughts.

As arrogant this claim this may sound, it can weigh heavily on the said BIM-mer.

Being able to pinpoint dodgy practices quickly in projects small and large, companies private and public is a peculiar bi-talent to have.

An asset and a curse.

See, any manager worth his salt knows when incompetency should be classified as fraud.

When you know it and do nothing about it;

Best to know nothing.

A ‘hard to cope with’ sort of attitude for a truly good BIM-mer.