Organize BIM projects in a lean and agile way on a digital platforma lean and agile way on a digital platform

In my first two articles "The BIM Project" and "Organizing BIM Projects", I wrote something about the necessary content and requirements of a digital platform for organizing BIM projects. In this article, I'll write about how teams work together. In my article, I describe it as if the digital implementation of my ideas were easy. But so far, I haven't seen a software company that has realized it. There are partial solutions, but there is no big picture.

I don't write anything about the methodological foundations of BIM and lean construction. I've done that a lot over the past 10 years. 10 years ago, I was ridiculed and criticized. Today, many people agree with me.

The digital platform

Why a digital platform? A digital platform offers the possibility to completely organize all activities and their documents as well as the BIM model in a single place. It is even possible to digitize the meeting room. In the end, the client is given sovereignty over the data. The client or the investors paid for the BIM project. A truckload of folders after the project is completed is a thing of the past. Likewise, the number of phone calls can be reduced to a minimum during the entire duration of the project. In addition, the constant disorderly e-mail transfer of all parties involved can be stopped. However, a digital platform should be able to handle all these features. If everything has been implemented in a simple and understandable way by the software manufacturer, the possibilities will also be used.

A digital platform for organizing BIM projects must be able to manage many companies and their people in an orderly manner. Each email address is a unique personal key. An individual domain is the unique company key. The digital world does not work without rules. Unfortunately, you also must accept restrictions. For example, the domain gmail.com or outlook.de cannot be used to set up a business. BIM projects can only be organized by companies with their own domain. As a rule, you will not find such functionalities in existing platforms.

The BIM project

Every BIM project requires at least one responsible person with the role of a project manager. The project manager creates the BIM project, can create one or more calendars and then invites the necessary people to a calendar. All invited people and the project manager form a team together.

In large projects, the project manager can invite other project managers to the BIM project. Each invited project manager can then organize a BIM phase. Every user of the digital platform should be able to determine who is responsible for what.

The schedule

Each team uses its own schedule. There are milestones and tasks in the diary. It can also make sense for there to be cascading milestones. The only important thing is that the structure is understandable and clear for the entire team.

For each diary, there is a list of milestones and tasks. It's not essential, but many users love lists. Lists offer an alternative visualization.

A third form of visualization is a graphical interface that mimics a wall in a meeting room. There, it is easier to assign tasks below a milestone than in a calendar. The team works together to determine a meaningful order of tasks under a milestone. In the past, it was necessary for all participants to gather in a meeting room, place colored sticky notes with the task on a wall and hang the sticky notes around the discussion until the desired order fits. After that, the project must transfer the task constellation to software. That was time-consuming and error prone. There are already digital solutions for this lean approach, but I don't like most of them at all in terms of handling. You can do it better and more elegantly. Each task has a duration of service provision determined by the participating trade. The milestone specifies the completion date. In the calendar properties, the non-working days are set by the team. As a rule, there is no work on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. When the tasks are positioned in the agreed order, the start date and critical path can be automatically determined, and the tasks are automatically placed in the calendar. If the desired solution does not fit, the process can be repeated as often as desired. If necessary, individual tasks can also be moved manually in the calendar.

The lean and agile way of working

Why should a digital platform support a lean and agile way of working?

Typical for an unplanned delay in the shell construction phase is very bad weather or a water intrusion that was not to be expected. Such events always have an impact on the milestones and tasks that currently need to be completed. In the worst case, the milestones and the tasks must be postponed.

A task on the critical path was not performed correctly and needs to be improved or completely repeated. At an immediately convened digital meeting, all subsequent trades affected by the problem can, for example, discuss and redefine the order of tasks. You don't have to wait until everyone has a joint meeting on the construction site again on Friday.

A BIM project consists of five phases. Different teams are active in each phase. Each BIM phase should be completed before the next BIM phase begins. Unfortunately, there can always be challenges in one phase or across phases that make lean and agile action necessary.

These were just three examples of why lean and agile cooperation between all parties makes sense.

Is a digital Kanban board helpful?

In principle, yes, but not in every situation. Imagine that you have a milestone in interior design. About 50 trades are active in the special building. The building has several floors. The floors all look the same and it is advisable to schedule the interior work. Below a single milestone, with which you organize the interior design of a floor, there are almost 250 tasks. For such a project, I accompanied a test installation for a software manufacturer a few years ago. Most of the time, a project manager works with a laptop and occasionally with a second screen. Each screen has a limited width and height. In such a project, you have some milestones, and the number of tasks easily goes into the four-digit range. The use of a digital Kanban board is very confusing in this case. You are constantly acting with different filters to limit the number of tasks. It would then make sense to use a Kanban board if it could be called up in the digital structure below a milestone in order not to have to constantly use filters from the outset.

In detail, I could tell you much more about the topics of this article. But that goes beyond the scope of LinkedIn. In any case, the digital platform should have a modular structure. The content I have presented is far from sufficient for the digitization of the construction industry. Each professional group involved in construction throughout the execution chain requires specific functions. Everyone must have the opportunity to look at a project from their perspective to contribute their part to the big picture. To my knowledge, no software company has yet succeeded in producing such a digital platform.

If you would like such an all-encompassing digital platform, please feel free to contact me.

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