Description
Key Learnings
- Discover what a BIM manager is and how the role can help your organization.
- Discover how planning strategies, training, and continued education can help with the transition to being a BIM manager.
- Learn how to fit the role to your organization by defining clear objectives and responsibilities.
- Engage in an open-room discussion on the role of today's BIM manager, and talk about best practices and resources available.
Speaker
- CLChristopher LindoWith years of experience in the AEC industry and a passion for education and building lifecycle technology, Chris consults with CADD Microsystems’, an Autodesk Platinum Partner. He helps clients to reach their goals by developing and delivering innovative training, consulting services, and much more; partnering with colleagues who are driven by the same passion that brought Chris to consulting. Public speaking is another passion of his as he was recognized as one of the top speakers at BILT 2018, among other conferences, events, and speaking engagements he has committed to over the years. In his free time, Chris enjoys all things nerdy. Armed with his bow-tie collection, he treks through the streets of the District, rambling on about the history of certain buildings, neighborhoods, and monuments to anyone who cares enough to listen.
CHRIS LINDO: Hello. Welcome to today's presentation. The presentation today is going to be Taking the Leap: Transitioning to a BIM Manager. My name is Chris Lindo. I'm a consultant with CAD Microsystems. You can always reach me at Twitter @CAD. You can also catch some of my work on our CAD blog as well as Twitter.
So to give you a little bit of background of what we're going to be really talking about, we're just going to be talking about what the role of a BIM manager could mean to your organization and what sort of steps that you can take to get to that position. So before we get into everything, let me go ahead and kind of give you an introduction to who I am.
So again, my name is Chris Lindo. I'm a consultant with CAD Microsystems. CAD Microsystems is a platinum partner with Autodesk. We've been a platinum partner for many, many years and have a lot of consulting services and training and support all around Autodesk software, as well as the online applications such as BIM 360 and even the Construction Cloud these days.
So my background, I was a engineer in Tysons Corner, Virginia. I was working on an electrical systems and then moved over into Revit. So we were an AutoCAD firm, but then we moved right into Revit. As we know, Revit kind of is our introduction to BIM and I'm going to talk a little bit more about BIM a little bit later. But basically, it's a really good software to get right into and get to that whole idea of BIM. So I really started becoming fascinated around Revit and the technology and what design software really meant, or computer aided drafting and things like that.
So understanding more and more of that really helped me transition into what I am now as a consultant. And so I just go around trying to solve problems for our various Autodesk software users as well as clients around Autodesk. So I am based in DC. So if you ever find yourself down here in the nation's capital, there's a lot of really great places to go to. Certainly, look me up and I'll give you a tour. Certainly, if you're going to be going to AU, you can certainly find me, and connect with me and ask me the best places to go to.
So I do want to go over the learning objectives for this particular presentation. So again, we're going to discover what BIM manager is and how it can help your organization. Really, that discovery is going to be sort of a self-actualization, right? We're going to really talk about the key elements of a BIM manager. But really, that can transition or change from one company to the other, or even from the multiple years that you're going to be at an organization, so keep that in mind.
We're going to discover planning strategies, training, and continued education, how that can help with our transition to a BIM manager and even create that BIM manager role and really define a lot more about it. We're also going to learn how to fit that role into your organization by defining clear objectives and responsibilities. We're going to engage also in a discussion of the role of today's BIM manager and best practices and even go over some resources available.
So the first thing that I like to talk about is building information modeling, which is our BIM, right? It is important to understand what I mean by building information or BIM as a process. So what do we mean by this statement? When you understand that BIM is a process rather than a product, you can see why there is a need for an individual or a team of individual focused on the development, implementation, execution, and maintenance of BIM and how really important it is both internally and in your project side as well.
There are a number of applications in software which supports BIM but BIM is not one product. It's rather a process, right? It's being able to take those products and being able to take some other tools and things like that and pull it all together into one cohesive project ongoing process, right?
So we utilize not only the tools we have in the forms of hardware and software, but we also utilize our team to deliver a true BIM project or a deliverable, right? So just like we have to maintain our forms of hardware and software, we also have to maintain our team being able to add in that continued education, to continue to develop the process, and even define roles and other things that we want to do inside a particular project.
In order to drive this process, we most focused on continued education, implementation of standards, investment and maintenance of our team and their tools, as well as always having an eye over what's to come over in the future, right? It must be noted that BIM process and BIM manager, who is in charge of that set process, can be different depending on the organization, the types of projects, and the requirements of that organization and those projects.
It is also important to note that many organizations have already developed into some kind of BIM focused or BIM supported firm, right? If that's the case, then it's very important to do your homework. What are you using already? Why are you using it? What support already there is, and who is part of that support team whether it's a BIM team or just a regular support team that you might have internally?
If it's not part of your firm, then you can take the amazing opportunity to define what BIM means to your organization. We'll be focusing on that area, but keep in mind that the strategies laid out in this presentation can be utilized for either scenario. So BIM is a process. Really, I just want to kind of define what BIM is, or by Autodesk, what that is. And then kind of go into a little bit about how we can kind of approach that process.
So building information modeling. Holistic process of creating and managing information for a built asset. And that's really, really important. When we're developing these 3D models and these kinds of projects with all these different tools, it's very important to understand not only are you just creating the geometry or really trying to define what these things look like and how they're all hooked together, you're also managing the information based in that software or in those assets.
So when you're building a wall or a VAV unit or an AHU or some kind of structural column, there's going to be information in there that's going to be very important at different processes or different times in a particular project, from the conceptual design all the way through design development and through construction.
And we're also talking about obviously the building lifecycle, right? So when we're talking about that building lifecycle, I just mentioned the first three which a lot of us probably have a lot of experience with. But really, the majority of the lifecycle or the lifespan of that building is going to be in O&L, right? So really understanding BIM as a process can really push for that O&M asset to be more critical or more important than ever, right? Being able to get that information and be able to share it and to build upon it.
So based on the intelligent model and enabled by a cloud platform, BIM integrates structured multidisciplinary data to produce a digital representation of an asset across its lifecycle, from planning and design to construction and operations. And again, that operations is very, very important. We're talking to our clients more and more so about, well, I know that you're trying to get a project designed through BIM. But what do you want to do with it after that point? Because Revit and other kinds of tools can be used in a variety of ways through the ownership and operations portion.
If you want to know a little bit more about that, certainly feel free to contact me at any point and we can talk a little bit more about it. It's pretty interesting stuff. But obviously, building lifecycle. View of the building and/or asset over the course of its entire life, taking into account the design, construction, and operation of that building or asset.
So again, understanding BIM is going to really go into that building lifecycle view. What are we developing? How are we building that information? How is it helping us through design? How is it helping us through construction? And how are we going to use it through ownership and operations?
So whenever I approach BIM as a process, I always think of the five T's. And so we have developed something called the five T's, which kind of focus on these five T's, these five areas of any sort of process or workflow or implementation that we really want to go through, whether it's a singular software or a new role, or a new way of doing business.
So we always think of technology first. Really, technology which includes your hardware, software, your applications, and other kinds of things to be used either as internal, operational, or project based. Again, are we using this more internally or are we just doing this to get new projects and new work?
Something internal can be used in a variety of different ways, not only as internal, but also in a project base. So keep that in mind. Now always, training. Training is so important here. And I really wish that I could actually make this more of a pie graph here, but I kind of like the image.
So training, it's where you can train on those tools and how to approach ongoing education, right? Since it is a process, that process is going to continue to evolve and change from one project to the other. Even internally, it's going to change. And now all of a sudden, we don't necessarily want to be always in that state of change. We want to be able to educate on a standard and kind of develop it and really make changes as necessary. So it's fostering a sustained and holistic approach to education.
How are we going to get the right tools? How are we going to be able to educate our users on those right tools? So also, speaking of your users, finding the right team and supporting their skill set in fostering that growth. Again, very important area here. Because when you are developing those tools and those education processes, you need to identify the right team members in order to foster that growth and help their own skill set.
And certainly, even spread that wealth of information, spread that education. I've seen many internal education processes look to other users to be able to feed other information to their team members. Whether it's how to use Revit or what's the latest kind of tech blog that they keep an eye out and try to keep an eye out what's going on in the future there.
Also, tools. So road mapping objectives and goals, and the tools with which to get us there. Again, Revit is a tool but BIM is a process. Well, what else can be part of that tool? Could be in 360 Construction Cloud or even Microsoft Teams and other kinds of tools there. So keep that in mind.
And then finally, technique. How do we get there? And how can we continue to be successful in those areas? And how can we also look inward and see what things did work out for us and what things didn't work for us, right? So always focus on these five T's, especially when you're going through any implementation process. Again, this can be as simple as just implementing just one piece of software or implementing a whole plethora of software and other kinds of processes to help you support more projects.
So BIM manager. It's a growing role, guys. And not only that, it is a well-thought-of role in terms of how many people out there are specifying what a BIM manager can be or is in one organization to the other. And it's in demand. So just something to keep in mind.
So we aren't going to define what a BIM manager exactly is. I'm not going to say this is exactly it and any other definition just doesn't matter. It can be one of many, many things. But there are key elements that make up what a BIM manager is and what that role really means for an organization.
So it's also a role that has grown from a single person to a department of people dedicated to an application, utilization of different tools, implementation of our design software through all means, and our project team. It requires a lot of processes, developing those processes, understanding current trends, and also obviously keeping an eye out for the next step of what your firm is going to take.
So let's talk about these key elements here. So these are the details of which are completely flexible depending on what you and your organization needs in a BIM manager or from a BIM manager. So something here, let's start off with our first point here. As a liaison, you understand the needs of the project workforce and communicate those needs to the leadership while also keeping in mind the goals of your leadership and what they wish to accomplish throughout a fiscal year or for the next few years.
You manage expectations while also creating opportunity for both production and leadership to meet their needs. Obviously, production might need some more tools or might need an add on or two to help them succeed in other projects. Well, you can translate that to your leadership and say, well, if we do this, we can get more work or we can get work done easier and faster and quicker. And we even win more work, and so on, and so forth. And also, it fosters a open education sort of process.
So also, developing strategies for BIM implementation and practices, process for BIM implementation. The whats, the why, the where, the who, and how for your organization. Many have heard BIM execution plans, but you are the one who ensures that each project's firm's needs are met, right?
Your production team understands the needs of a BIM on a project and that everyone is speaking the same language. I can't stress how important that is. When you're talking about BIM, when you're talking about a BIM execution plan or a BIM meeting, or maybe clash detection, clash resolution, things like that, a lot of these constructability reviews, a lot of these buzzy terms, what does that mean both for your firm and for the project team?
I have sat down in meetings with multiple clients even when I was a BIM manager at my old firm, sitting down and just defining what we mean by constructability review. What do we mean? What does everyone else mean? And what do we need for the project as a whole? So then we define what that is, and then we write a whole new project execution plan for that project.
You can think of that in terms of project based, not just as firm based or how we're going to be producing our projects, or all of our projects in the future, but also defining what that means in a project. Obviously, it's a lot of work but that's what the role requires.
So you also identify training needs and training gaps. You can develop in-house training, which can look like lunch and learns or seminars or convention sessions, like the one that you're currently attending, or certified training by an ATC, or even other resources. There are a lot of resources out there. Certainly, take advantage of your ATC, Autodesk Training Center, for any other kind of training means that you may not meet internally.
You also maintain standards and keep the train running, so to speak. Obviously, when you develop these standards, you need to keep up with it. You need to produce changes. Anything that needs to be updated, you need continue to stay on track with that. So standards are extremely important and updating them and maintaining them is a big part of what that BIM manager role is.
You also support the staff. So this can also require not just project planning and process and workflow implementation and organizational practices, but also help you maintain your modeling and design skills. If you're coming from the engineering world or design world as an architect, structural architect, or civil engineer-- so on, and so forth-- you can still do that role when the project requires it, right? So you're there to support the team as a role of a BIM manager. But you can also become an engineer and an architect and structural engineer, and so on, and so forth, if that's what the project requires.
It also keeps your modeling and design skills up to par, right? Obviously, when we get into the weeds, we tend to see just the applications and tools in front of us. But get into the weeds and start developing, start building with these tools, and kind of run yourself into those hard walls that your colleagues tend to get into. Well, application A doesn't do thing B and so on, and so forth. So why not try to get into the application, try to get into their heads and try to mimic that as much as possible?
So also, identifying new and growing technologies, strategies, and help identify what the organization can use and benefit from. What is the next Autodesk push? What is BIM 360? How can it help us? What is ACC? How can this positively affect our business? Or how can it negatively affect our business? How can this get us more clients or more projects in the future?
So keep in mind that these are just keys to a BIM manager. It may not always be on the same level of importance from one firm to the other. Continuing education, although extremely important, may not be in the purview of the BIM manager from one organization to the next. However, it's still very important for a BIM manager to understand the ever-growing training and education needs of a workforce.
So let's talk about BIM manager and strategizing your transition. So you can identify your organization, how you and your organization can benefit from the adoption of BIM and the creation of BIM manager. Focus on key areas that help you define what you need in order to be a successful BIM manager, such as what are the goals of your BIM manager, as a BIM manager? Who do you need to buy in? What does it mean to you? What education do you need, initial and ongoing education?
What tools do you need, including software and hardware, but also support? Who do you need there? What gaps are you trying to fill into the organization? That's something also very important. What responsibilities do you want? So after you answer these questions, now you need to define what this means to your organization. Taking the leap is not just about you, but also your organization.
Culture may need to adapt to the new role you are trying to create. Or if the role is created, then you may need to strategize how to adapt yourself to the requirements of that role. So speaking of which, taking the lead for your organization. So first, ask what does this mean for your organization?
Again, what are you trying to fulfill? What are you trying to do in that organization? What needs can this role meet? Are you ready? Just as important, is the organization ready for this? Look to your work and what kind of work your leadership wants to go after. What is preventing that from happening? What pitfalls are there?
So taking the leap can start off a few ways. But usually, I just start off with just a conversation, right? Discuss, layout, do a little bit of research. So has your organization tried this before? Are there currently BIM managers? And do they have clear defined goals and responsibilities? What kind of pitfalls are there and do they have support? Or were they just created to say, yeah, for this project, we have so-and-so as a BIM manager? They're now a BIM manager.
But what kind of support do they have? What kind of structure is there already? So also, who has heard of a BIM manager? It's time to just ask the question, what is a BIM manager to you? What do they think it is and how do they see fitting into that current organization? Or how do they see supporting them in their projects?
The buy-in. Who are we trying to convince? That is something very, very important. Again, we might want to convince the leadership, but that's going to be a different conversation than trying to get support from the production crew as well.
You also want to assess your current state. So how is the work performed at your organization? So look at current projects. What are the pitfalls and shortcomings? What kind of roles were there? What projects did succeed? Why did they succeed, or why did they fall through? Why did we not meet one expectation but met another expectation?
Also, look at production staff and support. What responsibilities are there? Who's part of the organization? Where is the management? Who are those roles and those key roles? Technology, hardware and software use and utilization. Who's using what, and the utilization of which, right?
So we can buy 50 licenses of something, but if only 10 people are using it, then we might not need so many licenses. And if only 10 of those people are using, are there other applications or other tools that the other 40 might need in order to use that tool, or use a tool that's like it? Or do people even realize that we have a license of that product? Something just to keep in mind. So again, use and utilization.
Also, access and training. Who has what and who is trained on what, right? Obviously, we have a lot of people coming in from school that know Revit, right? Well, Revit from one school to the other, in my experience, has been taught a little bit differently. So having them come in and understand that not only what Revit can be but how your company uses and that can be applied to any tool, uses that tool, is again very, very important.
And also upgrades. Do you have the latest release of XYZ application? If not, well, there's some new features that you might like that make things a little bit easier. Maybe you have something that you developed a process for years ago and it's working very, very well, but it takes a bit of time. Maybe there's an application or update to an application that fits that role now or that produces that same outcome.
So barriers, understanding what barriers are preventing you from getting new work or getting new software and getting that training, and time. Obviously, there is going to be that barrier of time. But obviously, you need that investment in order to open up that time to get that BIM manager role in there.
So project initialization. How is a project started? Who is identified part of that team? And what kind of communication is there to the other stakeholders of that project? Not just to our client, but to the people who are also trying to produce a BIM deliverable or a project in that BIM deliverable space.
So again, ask yourself, how are we initializing a project? Also, is there any process documentation? Now I'm not one that likes to go through endless PDFs of just saying this is where you click, and this is what you do. Just by sorry building a simple process document or being able to present a simple process in written form is going to be very, very powerful.
Obviously, you don't want to get an entire book of just how to do these certain things. Maybe that works for your organization. But in my experience, when you have something that is just very easy to comprehend, very simple to look at, it can kind of trigger what they've been trained on.
So you train them in the process. You document that process. And you give that as a asset for them to use later on. And speaking of assets, that goes around to your asset library, right? What do we have that needs to be developed? What don't we have? What are we missing? Are we just using things from other companies or from other resources? Or do we have anything built for us to use that works the way that we want it to work?
So another step here is to also look at the mission statement. What is your goal and how does it fit with your organization? So develop your own mission statement but also put it in line with your company's organization. So review the organization's mission statement. What is important to that organization? What support is there to get them to that goal?
So what does the implementation of BIM mean to you? What do you view as those important goals? Define your mission and then gain that support. Say this is how we're going to meet X, Y, and Z through A, B, and C. Again, the company has a mission statement or some kind of overall goal that they want to achieve. This is how you're going to help them get there with that BIM manager role.
So just like we were talking about gaining support, investment. Upper management investment and support provide a detailed assessment. What is your current state, and what is the perspective of your staff? What are they missing, what could they use, and do they have the tools necessary to perform their projects well?
You are able to be that person that translates what the production staff needs to upper management and to leadership. And you also want to game it out. What can this look like to your firm? Mission statement and cultural alignment. What are your short term, medium, and long term goals?
Speaking of which, you do want to engage your other colleagues. So how can you support your colleagues as a BIM manager? You're going to become this BIM manager, or at least you're going to develop this position. What does that look like to you and your colleagues? So interview. What works well, what doesn't work well? What can be improved? What is missing that your role as a BIM manager can kind of fill?
Remember, I defined those key elements. Well, those key elements can be added onto, right? There can be more and more responsibilities that a BIM manager can take on at your organization, or maybe even less.
Remember I was talking about that continued education? Well, maybe there's someone already set up for continued education at your firm. A BIM manager can support that and say, hey, this is where we're kind of missing some of our educational gaps. Let's try to see if we can fulfill those, or fill those, right?
So tools and technology. What do they have that's working well, and what's not working well? Training. Again, are there gaps in training and support, and that continued education. You also want to assess technology. So again, what applications and software are being used? What are you using in production? What are others using that can benefit everyone else? That's why you're kind of here or at least at AU or AU online, looking to see what other applications or what other kinds of things are out there that can help you and your firm.
What is out there? What can we use? Again, Revit, Autodesk, BIM 360, Navisworks Manage, Recap. Even license administration, right? Understanding what you have available and what is available to your users is going to be crucial. Also, hardware and server and IT support. Believe it or not, you're going to be working a lot with your IT management, whether that's an outside firm or you have someone internally or a team of users internally to kind of manage that IT. So you're going to be working with them very, very closely.
You also want to define goals and responsibilities. So how does this role fit with your organization? You'll see kind of a theme here. Again, what actually fits in your organization in defining those clear roles? So is it a role or is it a team? BIM management can involve a team of champions dividing up the tasks and responsibilities as needed.
As a BIM manager in my old firm, I couldn't keep track of every single project the way that I needed to as a BIM manager. So we developed a team of champions. That team of champions would be other users. But every now and again, they perform a few tasks for me so that I can keep track of what's going on in that project. And they become sort of my BIM manager champion or my Revit champion, is really what I call them. But they were also engineers and other production staff. But they know a little bit more about what the software is and how to use it. And they can also help translate even me, as a BIM manager role, down to the production staff.
So BIM manager responsibilities. Asset creation and management. These aren't all the responsibilities, but these are just some of them. So asset creation and management, project development, standards development. There's maintenance, all of that ongoing standards and asset creation. Continued education and training, project production support, BIM execution plans and processes, and so much more.
There's a lot that goes with the responsibilities of a BIM manager. But again, when you were first developing this role or at least trying to engage with that role at your organization, these responsibilities may take different levels of importance, so keep that in mind.
So another thing to do is also to be real. What I mean by that is understand success indicators and continued assessment. How has this role been working for you? So when you could develop this role, when you define those responsibilities, you can actually get into it and start going through these projects, look at staff morale. Have things improved? Do people enjoy working with you or working with that team? Do they enjoy the tools that you have given them or the assets that you have given them more?
Adoption prevalence. Have they adopted to the new role and the new processes in which you've created? Have you gotten that new work? Obviously, there's the promise of new work. But have you actually gotten that new work and how well has that gone for you?
Higher level of software comfort. This is a big thing. I do sit down with users and say, how is product XYZ working for you? What pitfalls are there? Do you feel more comfortable with it now than you did a year ago? What kind of gaps do you see that you have? Again, utilization and efficiency. How quick are we using these tools? How quick are we adopting these tools?
And this could also be in form a survey. Assess the effectiveness of BIM implementation. Send it down to the production staff, put it to your team, and put it up to leadership and try to compare. See what that looks like.
So I did want to talk a little bit about how you can kind of roadmap how to engage with your organization with this role, or how to develop this role. And at which point should you start thinking about these certain responsibilities, or how to get that role to where you are? So it's easy to say roadmap and objective or goal. But when it comes to an intrinsic process and workflow change, I rely on defining my short, medium, and long term goals, right? I also break down my objective into those five T's. So I'm going to bring the five T's right back around.
So this will also help you define what BIM manager is, or BIM management is, and how it can benefit your organization. So when you try to get buy-in for this position, you've outlined a plan of attack. Trust me, leadership always loves to see what are your plans in the next few weeks? What's your plan in the next few months? What's your plan in the next few years? They love seeing that. This can help your leadership see what it can take to invest into this new position and a way of performing projects. How does it fit with your current year plan or plan over the next few years?
So I love this. I love this chart here, I really do. This is kind of how I go into any sort of implementation. Again, it can be roadmapping just a simple process or a application to a full on culture work change. So I usually define short terms again in that five T's. So short term for technology would just be production software. What are we currently using? Do we need any hardware upgrades? Are there mobile apps that make things a little bit easier for us? Especially when we're in this world where we're all working from home, do we have the resources in order for people to do that, right? Do we have that kind of flexibility?
For training, workflow and process training. Well, we're trying to develop this thing. Well, we don't need to define every single part of it right now. Maybe we can just focus on a little part and train our users to get to that hurdle so that we can continue on with the process. Also, PM training. This can be project manager training, application training, things like that.
For your team, this can be a BIM manager team. Do you need one individual? Is it just one person, or could it be several individuals? Do you need a model manager or champions, model managers or Revit champions? Just like I was talking about earlier. You need a pilot crew. Let's say that we need to figure out if this is actually going to be viable. Is it going to work in every project schedule that we have? We can pilot that out and try to figure it out.
For technique, new application implementation, workflow and process roadmapping. BIM execution plan. BEP, right? And then getting the tools. Project templates, assets, and content and pilot project. All of that is short term. That stuff can be done in few weeks or a few months, right? Obviously, things are going to take a lot longer than others but that is going to be your short term goal to get you to those medium term goals, which is application integrations, right?
Well, we have our production application. But how can we fit it into other applications or other kinds of things that we want to do and we need to produce, right? Third party add-ons. What's out there? You're going to hear a few of them here in a little bit. Integration, process training.
Well, we have these now tools. They're integrating. They're talking to each other. How can we continue that education to have our team use those applications? It can be also a BIM production team, right? You have a BIM management team and we have successfully implemented BIM for our projects. Now we need a production team. How can we get to the next future of our projects? What can we do with our BIM manager team? Also, role finalization. Now you know what your team can do and how it fits with your organization. Now it's to define exactly what that is and finalize it and move forward.
And then other things like technique and tools, application process maintenance, updates, scripts, things like that. Now your long term are going to be your project analytics. Well, we've been doing this for a year, we've been doing this for two years. Has it helped us deliver our projects faster? What are the pitfalls? What can we do?
Also, there can be dashboards and in-house applications. We've developed them ourselves for in-house analytics to understand what is going on in our organization. But we've also developed it for other organizations. Here's a dashboard of all your projects. Here is an in-house application that gives you all of the management teams that you need for these particular projects.
Ongoing training, on-demand training assets. You've actually built a curriculum for even onboarding. Or you have a new team member that's going to be long term. How are you going to get them up to your level as quickly and efficiently as possible? Process roles and analysis, project handover and closeout processes. Post-mortems. What went well? What didn't go well?
And your long term could be that single source library, where no one is ever going to any other resource to get a VAV unit or get a wall type. They're developing it all in-house and they know exactly what they have and they meet all the needs for every single project. Now obviously, you're not going to meet every single need for every project. But getting to that single source library is certainly going to be a long term goal.
Now some of these goals may be flexible. Maybe you want to get that one single source library very early on that could move to a short term. These things can be flexible. But this is a really good example of what you can think of in terms of short term, medium term, and long term goals for BIM management.
So let's go over some resources. So I like to break it down where you have resources for educational resources, online resources such as AU online. You also have Autodesk Authorized Training Centers, ATCs. CAD Microsystems is an ATC and we can help with the initial ongoing and customized training. We also assist clients with all things related to their design software, workflows, and processes.
Certainly, attending AU. That is going to be a big resource for you. Go to AU, being able to go through your different sessions. Talk with your session leaders, engage with your colleagues and other team members there. It's going to be highly beneficial. There are also Revit user groups. Now Revit user groups are starting to become a little bit more about BIM centered as a process.
Certainly, we're there to learn more about Revit, but we also want to talk a little bit more about the process. Sorry, Revit is a tool. BIM is a process. So since Revit is a premier application for BIM processes, joining a Revit user group is a great way to connect with others who are in your shoes currently.
Social media. You can connect with BIM experts. There are people like BIM Guru, the Revit Kid. There's others. Certainly, we have our own social media presence as well. There's going to be blogs like AEC bits, Autodesk blogs. Actually, believe it or not, those are very, very helpful. Certainly, gives you the perspective of the software in general, but that's a really great resource. You'll find a lot of blogs that are per product like Revit. What Revit wants is also a good one. And certainly, our blog.
Books. So believe it or not, I actually do have a collection of books. My very first book that I ever bought for BIM was actually BIM for Dummies. Also, there's BIM and Construction, and I believe there's BIM and Integrated Design. Those are really good books to read up on to give you a better idea of what that term really can mean with all the different systems and applications out there currently and what's currently in use.
I did want to give you guys a little bit of an update-- sorry, not an update, but just kind of some things to keep in mind for add-ons. So we're going to focus just on Revit and Navisworks Manage for right now for these add-ons. But you have BIM interoperability tools. This comes now with the installers that you can get with Autodesk software. That includes the Autodesk equipment data tools, standardization data tool, model checker, and the model checker configurator.
So when you're going through BIM as BIM manager, going through these different tasks, you need to perform these tasks very quickly, right? So a model checker and model checker configurator is really going to help you out with that. Also, remember what I was telling you way back in the beginning where we're talking about creating information and applying that to what we're creating as far as assets and projects, well, the standardization data tool and Autodesk equipment data tool are tools specifically designed for you to input data into your project in one push, and continue to update that information with an ongoing process.
Dynamo. If you guys are not using Dynamo yet, you can use Dynamo. I'm even talking to you, MEP engineers. Yes, Dynamo can be used for MEP processes. It's not just made to create a really cool curtain wall system. You can have it push out information or even continue to update information from an Excel workbook. I've created an Excel workbook with all this parameter information that I want to continue to update in that location, but I want to update in Revit.
There's a Dynamo script that can do that, believe it or not. Iris VR is a really quick way to kind of get into that space with your projects. RushForth has a really great set of tools as well. MEP related add-ons, ElumTools, schematic tools. RushForth actually has some really good MEP tools, keep that in mind.
For Navisworks Manage, currently what I've been using is BIM Track. BIM Track is an amazing product that really helps us understand what information is out there in our Navisworks model and how to push it to our teams.
So let's go over a summary. So again, remember process versus product. BIM isn't just a product. It's not just one application. It's a solution. It's a process, a way to change how to approach a project from start to finish and even ongoing maintenance, right? The ownership and operations. Understanding this helps you define what a BIM manager is for you and your organization.
Approach the question with those five T's in mind. What technology do we need? What training do we need or are missing? What makes up our team currently? What are we missing there? What tools do we have? What is the technique in order to get us to that process? What areas and what drives our future implementation practices?
Elements of a BIM manager. Again, you're going to be that liaison. Connect your production team with management. You're going to be developing those standards, research new technology, innovative way of how you can perform your work more efficiently. Being an BIM manager means much more than just being tech savvy. It's really understanding what is out there and understanding your needs as an organization.
Taking the lead for your organization means defining where you are now, where you want to go, and how to get there, what can be made better in this process and what indicates success to you and your organization? Roadmap it out. What are your short term, medium term, and long term goals? What do we want to use Revit?
But what does that actually mean, right? We want to use Revit, but what does that look like two to three months from now, a year, five years? How do we want to continue this upward trajectory? Focusing on those five T's can help you define your termed goals and can be applied to many other aspects of your organization and the work you do, not just as a BIM manager.
Finally, BIM manager is basically what you want it to be, right? It can be what your organization requires and what you need it to be, and can change in the future. So keep that in mind. So I would like to thank you guys for joining me today. If you have any questions, certainly feel free to reach out to me at any point. Again, my name is Chris Lindo, a consultant with CAD Microsystems. Thank you for joining me today.
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