About briefing. Q&A with Prof Arto Kiviniemi, The University of Liverpool

To understand more about briefing in relation to BIM, I talked to Prof. Arto Kiviniemi. Arto is a former Professor of Digital Architecture Design at the University of Liverpool. He is one of the world’s absolute experts in Building Information Modeling (BIM). Interestingly enough, he has a keen interest in the topic of briefing, although he prefers to use the term 'requirements management'. It was the topic of his PhD research at Stanford. Arto was one of the first to see the potential of modelling both briefing and design information to allow for better integrating between the two.

JvM: You are one of the few scholars in the field of architecture who uses the term requirements management. Can you explain what it is and how it differs from the concept of briefing?

AK: As I explained in my PhD thesis , one of the problems in the construction sector is that many people think of a construction project as a sequential process where the different stages follow each other, while we should actually think of it as a process where the design, and sometimes even construction, affect the client’s requirements. Therefore we should think of requirements management as a continuous process, rather just a particular project phase, as briefing is often undersood. The figure below visualizes the difference. ?

Different process views, based on: Kiviniemi, Arto. (2005) .

JvM: In your work, you take a BIM-perspective on briefing, which is interesting because BIM is traditionally very much focused on design. Is briefing a neglected topic in relation to BIM? ?

AK: Yes, it is very much a neglected issue in the BIM environment and it should, and could, be different. I realised the problem already in early 1980’s when I was working as a designer. I found out that you could not systematically work with requirements as long as these were ‘hidden’ in written documents. But BIM provided a solution. Most client requirements are related to spaces and it is thus possible to create links between design objects (like spaces) and requirements if the latter are captured in a database as well. At the time, this was a completely novel idea. But there are now several commercial tools—like dRofus, your own tool BriefBuilder, and Gravicon’s ModelSpace —that build upon the same notion. ?

JvM: How do you see the future of briefing, or requirements management?

AK: I hope that proper requirements management will become an essential part of the digitalization of the AEC sector. But it is a conservative sector where changes take much longer than we usually expect. I have worked with BIM since 1997 and all the early adopters believed that change would happen within a few years. In a way that was lucky because I don’t believe that any of us would have the stamina to work with the solutions if we had known how slow the process would be—but eventually digitalization will happen.

JvM: What makes a good brief?

AK: What is important is that requirements are managed through the entire lifecycle of a building. Of course, it is essential that the initial requirements are carefully collected and communicated to the design team, but I believe that this part is mostly well-covered by existing briefing practices. Most designers also follow the initial brief thoroughly. But after that, requirements often start changing, partly in response to the design solution. The problem is that those changes are not recorded properly, making it impossible to track changes and understand the reasons behind them. This is particularly bad if project actors (client representatives, end-users, designers) change in a project. In a traditional process, there is no way to carry information through, and therefore there is a risk that the end-result is different from the original goal, like in the old joke below.

Tree swing analogy for design and development processes, source unknown. ?

Increasing gap between the original goal and the end-result, based on: Kiviniemi, Arto. (2005) .

JvM: What are your recommendations for construction clients?

AK: Clients are the key to change in the AEC industry. They should start with demanding the use of BIM, requirements management, and lean processes in their projects. This will improve the end product and they will be the main beneficiaries. However, this requires a total change in their procurement processes. Unfortunately, most clients still believe that dividing a project into small pieces and minimising the cost of each piece is the best way to manage projects—even though it is well documented that this results in problems concerning cost, schedules and quality. So, BIM in itself is not a sufficient solution. To reap the benefits of digitalization, the sector needs systematic changes in processes, procurement methods and rewarding systems.