Third root problem #2: We don’t learn from projects on an organizational level

Discover management patterns that hinder digitalization.

It’s time to look back. So far, we explore the status quo in “Building Stories”. Knowing the status quo is the first of 5 steps toward successful digital transformation. The steps are:

1. Awareness of the status quo

2. Communicating and collaborating

3. Automating what works

4. Simulating performance for better buildings

5. Empowering the business model

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One of the architectural offices I worked in used to have, in the early 90s, so well before my time, a construction detail catalog on A4. It was well thought through and linked to tender texts. The old colleagues told me they could copy and reuse the details in new projects. Whenever they encountered an issue in a project, somebody was in charge of updating the details. So a non-digital way of knowledge management. After seeing these beautifully hand-drawn details, I went to the general manager and asked, why don't we have the same thing now, just as a digital library? The answer was:

“Because now we have the internet, we can find every detail online.” 

I was so shocked by the answer I did not say anything.

The above example is an example of a management not understanding the benefits and risks of digitalization. I often see the following patterns at the management/organizational level in my consulting work:

No interest at all - a position I gave up trying to change - or the wish for fully automated solutions that does what the employees do now, just better and faster. Press a button to get a complete building design with cost, schedule, and all necessary construction documents. But this idea usually lacks any foundation and is not a thought-through strategy. When people start thinking about this one-button solution, they get cold feet and fall back into paralysis - mainly because they can't buy the fully automated solution on the market. They have to put hard work and many resources into it - a financial commitment usually too big for the small companies in the industry.

I often hear another management statement of a vision for the company: "We want to introduce BIM." But the wish to introduce BIM is not a vision - at best, it can be a tactic. But without knowing what you want to achieve, it is just a wasted effort. You can exchange the word "BIM" with any other new buzzword that is hype at the moment (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Blockchain …) - But trends are not a foundation to build a sustainable business. Often, this is visible when companies do one pilot project after another - wasting time and money by never scaling the learnings to a company level.

The next pattern I often see at the management level is: "We think BIM is the future, but the others have to start first." I hear this from owner reps about planers and from planers about owners. Construction companies tell me they are ready - but the engineers are not. And engineers say they would love to start, but the construction companies don't know how to manage the model. This game is played even inside large owner organizations - with project management and a facility management department. The only achievement of this game of back and forth is that the status quo does not change, and money is wasted.

So, in opposition to these aforementioned patterns, I recommend thinking about incremental small steps to optimize work. Define a pilot project in terms of a functional unit. E.g., tender process for concrete for tiles, … These small experiments can be tested quickly, optimized, and then quickly scaled. A great way to focus on learning!

On the other hand, on a modeler level (bottom-up), I see a growing competency in working with the tools and in understanding the principles of collaboration. I'm a huge proponent of these bottom-up grassroots approaches and think they can really drive innovation. Nevertheless, for any substantial change in a company, management is the most critical and challenging role in any digitization initiative. Many of the managers I meet are not fit for this challenge - of sustaining the status quo and changing simultaneously. The reason is that most industry managers are outstanding project managers and got promoted because of their excellent work. However, they did not take the step from a project to a company view. Awarness is the first step!

I saw this very nicely with a structural engineering office I consulted. In the first meeting, the management team showed me proudly their BIM strategy - all by the book. But once we went into more depth, I asked questions like: "What are the biggest challenges in your day-to-day business? Where do you lose money? How do you see the future? They struggled. We had to include other people closer to the daily business. In the case of this company, it was not enough to look at the project management level. The management was part of the project management team, and they were promoted because of their excellent work. But they were still so busy with their day-to-day project work that they did not have time to work on the company. 

This explains why project managers are often the most resistant to BIM implementation. Having to sit in all the meetings, barely managing the project as is, there is no time for experiments. Moreover, the project manager's success is based on project performance, and introducing BIM will lower the project's performance!

Therefore, the whole BIM implementation is often pushed on the shoulders of the modelers. They already know how to use the program; if not, sending them to software training is easy, and they are ready to start. This approach leads to frustration and costly experiments - without any or very little business benefits. In the case of the company mentioned before, the two best modelers were promoted to BIM-Managers and BIM-Coordinators. It is a massive step from being the "nerd" who knows how to use the software to managing projects with digital tools and supporting/coaching other people to do the work. One of them got frustrated after one year and found another position. That's a pattern I often see repeated. This vast discrepancy between management and people doing the work dramatically hinders wider adoption and hurts the business and people.

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Next week read about the Fourth root problem: We play the zero sum game!