Who will lead our industry’s
data-driven future?
WORDS Randall deutschHaving the right people on board is critical,
especially those who are predisposed or
motivated to work with data and see the value
in doing so. Brian Ringley, design technology
platform specialist at Woods Bagot, suggests
that “investment in multi-disciplinary project
teams and new graduates with emergent
technological specialisations will be key in
managing this change”.
Interest in, and appreciation for what
data can accomplish needs to be both a top
down and bottom up effort. Leadership on
the data front must start at both ends, and
requires equal dosages of enthusiasm and
understanding of how data can add value
in the organisation and on project work.
Learning to capture, analyse and apply data
is how many of us will take BIM – beyond
visualisation, clash detection and coordination- to the next level.
The BIM database can be queried and mined
for project data. This has implications not
only for the project team who query the model
for data that is going to help make decisions,
but also for management and leadership, and
for business development and marketing of
a firm’s services based on past experience that
is captured – and now mined – in the BIM.
In one specific example of data mining in
BIM, consulting firm CASE has helped firms
identify what content should make it into a
content library. “Go and explore 50 projects
that were done in BIM, then extract all the data,
then do a data mining effort to understand
what doors are used the most across the firm,”
suggests David Fano.LeaDeRShip in DataMany design and construction leaders don’t
know their firm’s data capabilities – the talent,
the technology, processes and workflows. What
will it take to enable this awareness? Will firm
leaders tell their data stories the way they have
been telling their collaboration and technology
stories? And, most importantly, who will lead
the data effort within an organisation? Who, in
other words, will be the glue?
There are many individuals performing hands-
on work with data in the AEC and planning
space. Is there a need for hands-off management
or leadership to help connect the dots?
“I believe strongly in project-based thinking.
That’s where ideas and methods are best
derived, tested, refined and executed. Abstract
exercises often lack authenticity, at least with
respect to real-world decision making,” says
Gregory Janks of DumontJanks. “I am also
leery of ‘management’, especially when it
leads to conformity, formulas and orthodoxy.
Orthodoxy can only be right for a brief moment
in time, and then must have the capacity to
renew itself. This is a very difficult process to
manage (centrally).”How does one describe the role of the leader of
a firm’s data-centric efforts?
“A great leader of data-centric efforts is
a person who is constantly seeking out new
problems, expanding their toolkit, sharing their
knowledge and advancing ideas that change
the world – this last one meant quite literally –
that result in actual and effective change in the
world,” says Janks. “Let the Darwinian forces of
success then allow these techniques to aggregate
into a formal body of practice.”
The leader of a data-centric firm strives
to understand what kinds of things can be
measured, and which cannot, and how both
can contribute to decision-making.
The leader of a data-centric firm works hard
to allow data to speak qualitatively when it can’t
speak quantitatively, and above all, to make
data accessible through visualisation techniques
and to express itself through storytelling – by
telling their firm’s data stories much the way
they have told their technology, innovation or
collaboration stories in the past. “This last one
is fundamental,” explains Janks. “We’ve all been
through those endless presentations of number
after number that amounts to not very much. If
the data is meaningless, keep it to yourself. Find
the meaning. Tell its story.”
How important is it that the leader of a
firm’s data efforts be hands-on when it comes
to technology?
“The first reorganisation of the traditional
design team is to merge the BIM leader and
the project architect,” says Jill Bergman of dsk
architects. “The project leader must be – or
must partner on the same leadership level with- the tools expert. I see many young talented
design professionals, so well versed in the tools
of their craft and either hiding it or making a
very clear expectation that they see being a BIM
leader as a career-ending path. We need to stop
separating the two and merge tool knowledge
with building knowledge and give value and
reward with leadership.”
Most still use Building
information Management
(BiM) tools for document
creation when they need
to recognise BiM’s
real value. For this to
have a transformative
impact on projects, the
profession will require
both a top down and
bottom up effort.
aRchitectuRe & design /peOpLe/ jul-sep 201916ADQ3_016_017_Essay 1_V1.indd 16 26/7/19 4:49 pm