5 ways to mitigate risk in building and infrastructure projects

How can technology reduce and resolve disputes in design and construction projects? We provide the normal way and a few more:

1. Cover your rear. It’s not a pretty attitude, but when it comes to risk mitigation, some people still work in this model. Our enterprise software logs transactions automatically and indexes your network for Google-like searches, with the added capability to sort and filter results. And our cloud software maintains a project record that no one can argue with.

2. Prevent conflicts from arising in the first place. As BergerABAM President and Chief Executive Officer Arnie Rusten put it, “Often we can resolve a dispute simply by showing an email that documents our instructions. Newforma Project Center makes it easy, even if that email was generated by someone who’s no longer with the firm.”

3. Make sure everyone is working from current documents. Our software offers a few ways to make sure people are working with up-to-date files. The Newforma Project Cloud collaboration platform is one. Newforma-to-Newforma connectivity is another. Newforma Info Exchange Shared Folders is a third.

4. Work transparently. When everyone knows what everyone else is accountable for, what information they have, and when they got that information, it’s hard to shirk duties or point fingers. The technologies cited above all support transparent workflows.

5. Make more-informed decisions. Our financial and resource planning software enables project managers and senior executives to head off prospective problems by forecasting needs months into the future, instead of just weeks. And our soon-to-be released ability to publish 3D models in the cloud, where they can be viewed and navigated by non-Revit-using team members, will facilitate more-informed decision making, too.

 

Which is the better project information host: The enterprise? Or the cloud?

If you were hoping for a definitive answer, please accept our apologies, because the answer is, “It depends.”

The optimal location for your project information depends on your business needs and the information being managed.

For example, because architecture, engineering, construction, and owner organizations maintain so much information on their networks, we offer software to manage all that data.

At the same time, because extended project teams – teams that span multiple companies – gain efficiencies by filing and managing project information in one place, we offer software to host it in the cloud and access it via the web, where everybody has equal access.

Note in the example above, the answer is not “either/or.” It’s “and.” So we’re doing that, too – linking enterprise-hosted information to cloud-hosted information. (If you’re acquainted with Newforma-to-Newforma connectivity, you know how we do it.)

To see the future of project information management, get the whole story from Newforma Chief Executive Officer Ian Howell’s newly revised white paper, “PIM in the Cloud.”

Request your copy here.

Project Information Management Systems at Cross-Purposes

Newforma is reconciling two approaches to PIM. Consider:

The purple, horizontal bar shows project information managed across the enterprise. This is a preferred method for design firms. Among other benefits, it permits you to tailor your processes to your organization.

By contrast, the green, vertical bar shows how project information managed across the project provides one PIM platform for the entire project team. This is a preferred method for construction companies. Its costs can be borne as part of the project.

How can you get these two approaches to work together?

The Newforma solution is simple: Offer both systems, and allow the two systems to talk to each other. Newforma-to-Newforma connectivity is how we do it.

(Newforma to Newforma also permits multiple enterprise customers to share files as if the different companies were on the same network!)

For more information, read our Newforma to Newforma tech brief.

RTC North America June 28-30

We’re looking forward to seeing you at the Second North American Revit Technology Conference. It runs from Thursday, June 28, to Saturday the 30th, in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Register here.

You may ask, “What is a company that makes software for project information management doing at a conference focused on building information modeling?” The common element is the word “information.”

There’s a lot of project information in a Revit model that may be more easily managed in some other application. Space planning spreadsheets, for one. Lots of Newforma customers tell us they would rather manage space planning spreadsheets using Excel and Newforma Project Center, then import the data into the model.

Or there may be project information that pertains to the model without being part of it. Think of all those emails documenting design decisions: Wouldn’t it be great to tie those emails to that part of the model?

For all these uses and more, Newforma created its add-in for Autodesk Revit. It facilitates the management of the “I” in BIM.

For a step-by-step tutorial on one aspect of the integration between Newforma PIM software and Revit BIM software, see an AECbytes “Tips and Tricks” column by Matt Tosto of Affiliated Engineers, Inc.

In “Managing Revit Drawing Revisions in Newforma Project Center,” Matt describes how AEI’s Newforma-driven process eliminates tedious manual spreadsheet updates and provides easy access to every current and previous revision of a drawing in a project.

For more demonstrations and conversations, visit the Newforma booth at RTC North America June 28 – 30!

The Power of Progress

Legend has it that when Zeus wanted to punish a man — to really punish a man — the god made it impossible for the man to ever again feel the satisfaction of accomplishment.

We’ve all had those days. Late afternoon rolls around and you realize you have not accomplished any of the tasks you came to work to do that day.

But this post talks about the other side of the situation, when you enjoy tangible forward motion on your projects. The joy of progress: That’s the real pleasure of work!

Don’t take my word for it. That’s the finding documented in this Harvard Business Review article. In “What Really Motivates Workers,” Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer write:

On days when workers have the sense they’re making headway in their jobs, or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles, their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak.

I  believe Newforma’s success has resulted from delivering this feeling of overcoming obstacles and making progress in daily work:

• Architects measure progress by how well they serve clients and deliver successful designs.
• Engineers measure progress by how well they engineer solutions — and they like to engineer their businesses to operate more efficiently, too.
• Contractors measure progress by how far they advance the schedule and coordinate their legions of subcontractors.
• Owners measure progress by how well they understand and operate their facilities.

In each case above, Newforma software removes impediments to progress.

If you want to kill someone’s spirit, as Zeus did, Amabile and Kramer found that the Greek god-king knew what he was doing:

On days when [workers] feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are lowest.

But if you want to enjoy the satisfaction of achievement and help your colleagues do the same, we have some ideas of how you can make that happen. Write answers@newforma.com if you’d like to start a discussion!

Postscript video

Teresa Amabile, Harvard Business School professor and coauthor of The Progress Principle, explains the importance of wins at work:

New white paper examines project information management in the cloud

Newforma Chief Executive Officer Ian Howell has published a white paper, “PIM in the Cloud,” that discusses cloud-based project information management as practiced by Newforma and Newforma customers.

Newforma’s philosophy is to design software that manages project information wherever our customers wish to keep it. With more project information residing on cloud servers, we’re doing more implementations in the cloud.

That’s not to say all project information is moving to the cloud. Architecture, engineering and construction companies work with large volumes of dynamic and unstructured information that sometimes lives on cloud servers, but more often resides in-house.

To address these different needs, the Newforma solution includes a number of different software components that run on different platforms, depending on which best support our customers’ business needs.

Our “PIM in the Cloud” white paper examines these topics and more. To request a free copy, please complete and submit this form.

Treating the Redline Blues

This Architexts comic is funny because it’s true:

If you would prefer to get your laughs from sources other than frustrating rework, Newforma has a solution, and a Newforma customer has published the step-by-step instructions.

In “Managing Revit Drawing Revisions in Newforma Project Center” at AECbytes Issue #62, Matt Tosto describes how Affiliated Engineering, Inc., a multi-discipline technical consulting firm, is managing the steady stream of drawing revisions generated from Revit.

The process Matt shows in his “Tips and Tricks” article eliminates the possibility of people accessing dated drawings.

You’re not restricted to Revit alone to employ the Newforma Document Control activity center. It can be used to manage revisions of any file types, including AutoCAD DWG and Microstation DGN files.

For a short video overview, visit this page at newforma.com.

Electrons vs. atoms: Guess which is winning.

Although global paper consumption has increased by half since 1980, the architecture, engineering and construction industry has an increasingly reduced role for paper.

Newforma Vice President of Construction Services Dan Conery can tell you the reasons why.

“Clash detection can’t be done with paper,” Dan says. “You have to share models to find clashes between them.

“Also, submittals are on the rise,” Dan says. “The industry is evolving integrated ways to manage submittals, RFIs and other contract documents that don’t involve paper.”

For more on the twin trends of paperlessness and information integration, read Dan’s guest post at constructiondive.com. It offers two thoughts about trends in construction project information management.

One direction it’s not going is that of tracking paper.

“Systems built 15 and 20 years ago were built to track paper,” Dan says. “Now the shift to 3D modeling, higher-speed networks and Adobe allows us to manage information electronically, in real time.

“Incumbent technologies have not made the shift,” Dan says.

“But the key to productivity moving forward is not just paperless operations. The key is to integrate electronic processes.

“For example, sharing files with a dropbox-style utility is electronic, but it lacks a project context and lacks integration.

“It doesn’t make sense to manage electrons if you’re going to separate them in silos, just as you did with paper,” Dan says.

For a fuller explanation, read Dan’s post, “Two Gretzky-Inspired Process Trends for Builders,” at Construction Dive.

Top 7 Reasons to Upgrade to Newforma Project Center Professional 9th Edition

Reason #1: Newforma to Newforma
Come to think of it, there are 50,000 reasons to start using Newforma to Newforma - One for each of the 50,000+ Newforma Project Center users at design, construction and owner/operator companies worldwide. "N2N", which has been unveiled in 9^th edition, allows Project Center users to seamlessly share, exchange and synchronize project information like RFI’s, submittals, file transfers, shared folders and Autodesk Revit models as if you are all working on the same system – except you’re not! You continue to work locally with files and project information on your local network at LAN-access speeds, and your partners only get to see what you choose to share with them. As one of the early users of N2N from Cannon Design has said,  "N2N completely redefines what it means to be connected to your project team."

Reason #2: The Revamped Info Exchange web site
I really think you are going to like the new look of Info Exchange. I think your clients and project team partners will like it too. We’ve revamped Project Home with  "ATM Friendly" access to Transmittals, Submittals, Shared Folders and more. We’ve also added Project Home widgets so you can tailor each default Project Home to spruce it up with site renderings or construction photos; display primary project contacts and info; or add additional useful widgets for open items, local weather, look-ahead project calendars and more. The  "ATM-like friendliness" extends into the project logs as well with 1-click controls to open attachments or enter responses, as well as drag ‘n drop to update your shared folders. Finally, it ALL works just great on iPads and Android tablets with WIFI or 3G/4G enabled.

Reason #3: Project Publisher
One of the most mundane, oft-neglected phases of project delivery involves the closeout and handover of project information. And is it fair to say that the actual presentation of documentation and materials to the client at project closeout sometimes leaves something to be desired? Not so with the Newforma Project Publisher feature. First use the  "wizard" interface to select record documents, submittals, the project team roster, selected document sets such as warrantees and O&M documentation, and information from any other activity center in Project Center to be part of your closeout package. Then organize the content any way you want in a hierarchical table of contents and publish it to a DVD, USB or network drive. The contents are neatly packaged into tables with each record linked to its underlying data and files. And it’s all professionally branded with your project and company graphics and accessed from a hierarchical table of contents. A far cry from 12 boxes and a cloud of dust!

Reasons #4 and #5: Contact Directory and Custom Word Forms
The new Contact Directory is a standalone app to centrally access and manage your company’s contact database. It works hand-in-glove, or rather  "drag-and-drop ", with Microsoft Outlook and the Project Team activity center in Newforma Project Center. You can also lock down Contact Directory editing privileges with the new  "Content Administrator" role.

But what really makes Contact Directory is its integration with the new Word-based form templates in 9^th edition. You can now convert standard,  "boiler-plate " Word documents like contracts and letters into dynamically generated forms merged with company, contact or project fields from Newforma Project Center. Your forms can leverage formatting options from Word like page numbering, headers, footers, repeating column headers and more. And a Mail Merge "Helper" macro helps administrators add smart fields and tables from Newforma contacts and project items like submittals, contracts or change orders.

In fact, we liked the Word form templates so much that we extended its reach to support the built-in forms in Newforma Project Center, including transmittals, RFIs, submittals and contracts, all of which were previously only editable using Microsoft InfoPath. We knew this would be pretty cool – but I have to admit I was surprised to hear from several of our earliest 9^th Edition customers that this was their favorite of all the new features! 

Reason #6: The need for speed
In 9^th edition, our engineers made a concerted effort across many aspects of the product to optimize the code. From navigating between activity centers to viewing PDFs to working with projects pinned to remote servers, 9^th edition will feel noticeably "snappier". This has been confirmed by our earliest 9^th Edition customers.

Reason #7: It’s the Easiest Newforma Upgrade Yet
My final reason to upgrade to 9^th edition? Well, to quote one of our early 9^th edition customers,  "it felt more like an update than an upgrade."  The whole process is very well documented and can be completed in a couple hours. 9^th edition runs on the same hardware as 8^th edition and there are no changes to any underlying OS requirements. And for the first time, you can now skip a release when upgrading to the current release. So customers with 7^th edition can bypass 8^th edition completely and upgrade straight to 9^th edition. Once you get onto 9^th edition, life gets even better with regards to updating and upgrading the Newforma Windows clients as there is now an option to auto-update clients to the appropriate release when upgrading a Newforma server.

To see a complete list of new features and functionality you can download an overview in PDF format.  To learn more about Newforma Project Center Professional, visit our website.

Thought you'd like to see this...

If you’ve known me for any length of time, you’ve probably received a newspaper or magazine clipping from me. I might star or underline the important passages, or even slap a sticky note on it…just to ensure that you get my point.

So it’s with great interest that I’ve been reading about the concept of content curation for the internet. Search engines and news aggregators can round up vast quantities of web tumbleweed, but there’s no value assigned to any one piece. I am quickly overwhelmed by drivel when I’m just trying to locate something authoritative, informative, or just plain entertaining to read. I need a friend with a yellow highlighter to point me to the good stuff!

Curators take on the role of trusted advisor on the internet. They find, group, and organize the most relevant web information on a certain topic. And the best curators also explain the trends or insights that link the pieces together.

Say that scuba diving is your latest hobby. When you find a clever blog on diving that directs you to a handful of fantastic articles and photos every week, you’ll quickly become a devoted visitor and feel like you’ve found a new best friend. No more floundering around on Google anymore.

I believe that Newforma Project Center (NPC) becomes a type of "curator" for our customers as they grow into the product. NPC’s immediate value is in searching and rounding up your project files. It's a relief to put your hands on important email within seconds.

Then, our customers expand into document control and contract management, and that’s where NPC’s power to interconnect issues really shines. For instance, my field engineer may dump 30 photos onto the network from his camera. Locating them with the File Search is good...but I really want to know which photo is important and why.

With NPC, I can see the date/time/location stamps on the photo files, and I can assign keywords to sort them by subject matter. One of those photos might be linked to an RFI about a field condition, which could lead me to a revised drawing, and finally to all of the email conversations that surrounded the team’s new direction. NPC pulls to the surface the most critical pieces of project information, and then gives me all of the related data that creates context and meaning. Thanks, my electronic friend!

Newforma - Uniquely serving the AECO Market

We recently launched Newforma Punch List, and I am reflecting on the road we traveled from the first Punch List discussions. Some themes keep popping into my mind:

1. Newforma is in a unique position. We are the only company I know of with customers across all aspects of project design and delivery.
2. Punching (or “snagging” in the UK) is a tedious process.
3. For construction companies, time really is money.
4. Project complexity is on the rise. At the same time owners expect their project faster without sacrificing quality.
5. Our customers want to do business with fewer technology companies.

Architects, engineers, contractors, design-builders, subcontractors, and owners across the globe use Newforma solutions to win, manage, and deliver projects. We have a unique insight on project delivery across all of these roles. While most solutions will claim they work for everyone, the reality is they either focus on Design, Construction, or Operating.

At the very beginning of our quest to capture information at the jobsite, we spoke with folks in every role to get their perspectives. We quickly realized that Punch List is the top issue folks wanted solved. Everyone agreed the process was tedious, error prone, and (although critical) not something they looked forward to doing.

I heard that we needed to make our solution incredibility simple. One of my goals was that tablet training should take less than 20 minutes—a goal I am proud that we achieved!

Any amount of time that construction companies can squeeze from the project schedule reduces the possibility of late delivery penalties. With IPD contracts on the rise, the goal is not just avoiding penalties, but tapping into bonus pools for additional profit. An integrated solution like Newforma Project Center that streamlines all project processes (including punch list) is a key tool towards optimizing the project schedule. Electronic submittals are another example where our products can save both time (cutting down review cycles) as well as money (eliminating shipping costs).

With projects increasing in complexity while also tightening timeframes, it’s clear that teams must rely on technology to stay in control. Punch List is just one of many processes that involve every company across the project. During the final intense phase of a project, it’s critical to have the punch list effectively coordinated since it’s the last hurdle crossed on the way to project closeout…and final payment.

Every time I participate in a customer or prospect meeting, I repeatedly hear about “technology overload.” There are too many solution providers offering bits and pieces of project information management.

Our customers demand that Newforma help reduce this complexity. Punch List, along with other field management tasks, is simply additional project information. So customers ask and expect Newforma to provide solutions to capture this information. After all—we are the Project Information Management solution for the AECO market.

Newforma named Innovation Rocks! Award Winner for October

All of us at Newforma are excited to be recognized as the October “Innovation Rocks!” award winner! Innovation Rocks! is an initiative sponsored by the New Hampshire Division of Economic Development in coordination with Rock 101 (WGIR-FM) to celebrate the creativity and ingenuity of New Hampshire innovators.

I thought the comments were pretty much spot-on when it came to describe why Newforma was chosen:

“Newforma shows how a relatively young New Hampshire company can have significant market impact,” said New Hampshire Division of Economic Development Interim Director Chris Way. “It’s only been a little over six years since the First Edition of their Project Center software was put out in limited release, and now Newforma’s software is being used by 49,000 licensed users in 620 companies across 10 countries to manage 650,000 projects. That’s innovation that works.”

This award means a great deal to us. Even though Newforma products are being used by industry leading Architecture, Engineering, and Construction firms on projects all around the world, it is especially rewarding to be recognized in your home state as a leader in innovation.

I also personally like the connection with both the New Hampshire Division of Economic Development and Rock 101. I grew up in New Hampshire, and I’ve seen firsthand all the great things that NHDED have done for the state, and of course, Rock 101 was my go-to station for the best Rock and Roll!

We really appreciate the award and are very proud of the recognition. However, as is the Newforma way, we won’t rest on our laurels. To quote classic rockers Bachmann Turner Overdrive, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!”

SharePoint and Newforma Project Center: managing information, curating knowledge

Part 2: Why not use SharePoint to manage project information?

A conversation with LMN Architects Director of Information Technology Tim Rice, AIA

Read Part 1, "What's the Difference?" here.

Note from Allen Preger, a Newforma founder and the company’s chief product officer:
“After talking about the different applications for Newforma Project Center and SharePoint in our last blog post, I asked LMN IT Director Tim Rice why he isn’t using SharePoint for more functions.”

ALLEN PREGER: With its flexibility, why hasn’t SharePoint been adopted for project-specific information management or collaboration?

TIM RICE: There would be way too much overhead involved in making SharePoint dynamically flexible enough to manage project-specific information. To give you an idea, we have over two terabytes of active, project-specific data currently being managed by Newforma Project Center. This data all resides in project-specific file shares, which, by the way, supports the way our teams work with CAD, BIM and other graphics-intensive tools to create all that information. I couldn’t fathom changing the process by which we manage the project information we create and consume.

Conversely, we currently manage less than one gigabyte of data on our SharePoint site. As a 100-person professional services firm, I don’t see how we could support scaling our SharePoint site to manage all of our project-specific information and processes. While Microsoft is to be commended for designing SharePoint to be highly-customizable, thereby providing a high degree of flexibility, someone has to provide that customization. It’s a great collaboration platform for ad hoc sharing of project knowledge, but I could never imagine building out SharePoint to support the file types and work flows of our industry.

ALLEN: On the topic of collaboration, have you considered using SharePoint as a project portal for external clients, consultants and agencies?

TIM: As I mentioned, we like the way SharePoint fosters internal collaboration, but I would not be comfortable opening it up to external companies and trying to manage permissions and accounts.

Out of the box, Newforma Info Exchange does everything we need it to do in terms of file transfers and collaboration with external teams.

We have over 1,900 external Newforma Info Exchange accounts, each one created and managed through Newforma by our users. External team permissions and notifications are all handled by Newforma on a per-project basis. Password generation and reminders are all automated. I can count on one hand the number of times I have had to walk someone through the process of adding a team member or downloading information from the site.

Managing 1,900 external SharePoint accounts would be a logistical challenge, to say the least. And even if we could administer this, I am not sure how we would provide the 1,900 SharePoint client access licenses (CALs) for these people.

Click to read Part 1 of this conversation, “What’s the difference?”

LMN Architects Director of Information Technology Tim Rice, AIA, has been an architect since 1979, managing CAD and IT systems since 1988. He has provided firm-wide leadership for the firm’s BIM initiative and is responsible for implementation and integration of new technologies into all aspects of LMN project delivery. LMN has been a Newforma customer since 2006.

Reflecting on Newforma’s beginnings 6 years ago

Yesterday, Cinco de Mayo 2010, was Newforma’s 6th birthday. It was on May 5, 2004, that we closed our Series A funding.

The idea of starting a new business actually started a full year earlier, in May 2003, in the offices of Borealis Ventures in Concord, New Hampshire.

I wasn’t there, but as the story goes, several participants left that meeting saying “No thanks, and don’t call me again.” Others, including Bob “Batch” Batcheler (now Newforma’s VP Industry Marketing and Product Management) and Larry Nuttall (now a partner with the Ascentage Group) , were inspired enough to commit to doing some more research and to start talking to potential customers. Soon after, the instigator of the whole adventure, Jesse Devitte (our initial investor and current Board member), recruited Todd Kozikowski (NE Region Sales) to help. Next, they roped in Jim Forester (Senior Technical Advisor) and Allen Preger (Chief Product Officer) during what started as a casual conversation on a sun deck out in California. They then arm-wrestled Dave Plunkett (VP Engineering) to consider leaving his job at Autodesk.

So Newforma was started without any technology, not even a prototype – but with a founding team that was highly qualified to analyze the state of the AEC market to identify opportunities. Our founders sought to add value by creating a new class of software application to meet business needs that were not already being met by existing vendor solutions. Part of the process was to lock themselves in a conference room at an Embassy Suites in Las Vegas with only a small porthole window for a couple of days, after which AEC1 became a registered Delaware company with 7 founders: Batch + Larry + Todd + Jim + Allen + Dave + Jesse.

That is also about the time that I got a phone call asking if I would review the AEC1 business plan to provide input/feedback. This soon became a second full-time job, consuming nights and weekends. After exchanging lots of redlines I recall flying from California to New Hampshire on a very cold Dec 27th in 2003 to work for the next two days with the team on finalizing the business plan in the very same Borealis conference room where it had all started back in May. In January, I was asked by the founders if I would consider becoming interim CEO to lead the fundraising effort and start pitching the business plan to potential investors. Somewhere along the line I resigned from my VP role at Citadon, sold my house in San Francisco, packed my family into a Jeep and drove 3,000 miles across the country all the while pitching VCs in the hope that we would get funded.

I wanted to share this story with you to help you imagine just how excited (and relieved) all of the founders and I were on May 5, 2004, when our first round of funding closed and we actually had a bank account with a credit balance and we could all look forward to our fist pay check.

Wind the clock forward to today and we now have 50 employees, 460 customers, 40,000 users and a second-generation Seventh Edition product that has just been released. At this writing, we have over 1,100 servers deployed that index and share information on more than 350,000 projects. Along the way we have created: project information management (PIM) as a new software category in the AEC market, and we have established Newforma as the leading solution provider in that category.

In addition to thanking everyone on the Newforma team for their important contributions toward achieving these terrific milestones, my genuine appreciation goes to our partners and customers. To all the architects, engineers, construction professionals and IT executives who have shared their detailed requirements with us, provided feedback on product design ideas, validated our product functionality and volunteered to test our software; and to our partners, who have integrated their products with ours, we owe a birthday toast to you all!

What an amazing ride so far - - with still more fun, new challenges and lots of opportunity to provide even more value to our customers ahead !!

e-Discovery Resources

In our recent webinar on PIM and e-Discovery, entitled Capturing decisions as they're being made: facilitating e-discovery, I promised to provide links to several information resources that I have found useful on the topic of e-Discovery. Please note that some of these resources require you to register to access the materials, but registration is free at the time of this posting. Here they are:

The Sedona Conference is a nonprofit, “research and educational institute dedicated to the advancement of law and policy in the areas of antitrust law, complex litigation and intellectual property rights.” Their Working Group Series are some of the most readable, authoritative resources on the rapidly evolving area of e-Discovery and many other areas at the intersection of law and technology.

Their Jumpstart Outline is a great warm-up on the topic of e-Discovery; it will either reassure you that you have a handle on your record retention and discovery process, or, more likely, scare the hell out of you and motivate you to invest some time and effort. The outline is a sample of the type of questions your organization is likely to receive in the early stages of the discovery process. I suspect it would be intimidating, if you are not properly prepared in advance.

Other useful resources from The Sedona Conference include:

• e-Discovery glossary
• best practice guidelines and commentary

The Federal Judicial Center is where judges go to learn about this stuff, so it is also a very definitive source. The have many papers and other resources re: e-discovery. In particular, the pocket guide to e-Discovery is very readable and useful.

The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) graphic shown in the webinar was developed by EDRM which “develops guidelines and standards for e-discovery consumers and providers.”

The websites of dedicated e-Discovery solution providers are also filled with case studies and whitepapers that you may find useful.

And, of course, there is always…

Coming in late October, 2009.

The Cost of the Status Quo: Traditional project delivery models have failed

The status quo of adversarial contractual relationships, E&OE (errors and omissions exempt) plans and specifications, claims for extras and issue resolution via construction lawyers is captured perfectly by the now infamous ‘change order boat’ image.

But these outmoded practices are slowly being replaced and will (in time) disappear. Little wonder that the use of design-build contracts as grown to more than 40% of non-residential design and construction in the US (up from just as reported by the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA). This reflects the willingness of a design-build firm to take full responsibility as prime contractor for a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) and a guaranteed delivery date along with the risk of significant penalties for late delivery.

Why ? Because owners are no longer willing to accept the finger pointing, risk avoidance, project delays, cost over-runs and litigation involved in traditional forms of project delivery. Witness the industry whitepapers published by CURT (The Construction Users Roundtable) as well as the results of the FMI/CMAA Annual Survey of Owners.

As a result our industry is finally seeking new and better ways to deliver high quality building and infrastructure projects, on time and within budget, more predictably and more profitably.

Leading firms are experimenting with integrated project delivery (IPD) methods defined by the AIA in their publication called “Integrated Project Delivery: A Guide” as: “A project delivery approach that integrates people, systems, business structures and practices into a process that collaboratively harnesses the talents and insights of all participants to optimize project results, increase value to the owner, reduce waste, and maximize efficiency through all phases of design, fabrication, and construction”.

For more about IPD as an emerging mainstream project delivery model, also read our blog entry below called IPD: 5 Essentials for Success.

IPD: 5 Essentials for Success

Newforma helped sponsor last week’s inaugural IPD (Integrated Project Delivery) Conference hosted by Stagnito Media in Boston, attended by about 80 AEC professionals from 24 states.

The aim of IPD is, of course, to change the status quo! An IPD project team strives to meet seven important goals:

• Deliver high quality projects on time and within budget.
• Reduce errors and omissions
• Invest in better team collaboration.
• Manage more complex projects requirements (e.g. LEED certification).
• Remove the “litigation phase” of a project.
• Redefine traditional (i.e. adversarial) behavior.
• Greatly improve the predictability and profitability of the project delivery process.

Leading up to this event I was privileged to be asked by Brad Horst, CIO of EYP, to join his panel of industry experts to share any observations distilled from the one-day agenda of presentations and informal discussion. Highlights for me were the project case studies by building owners such as Digby Christian of Sutter Health, John Moebes of Crate&Barrel, and Erin Rae Hoffer of Autodesk, who, together with members of their project execution teams, shared challenges and successes from their early implementation of IPD projects.

What I concluded from listening to the keynotes, attending various breakout sessions and engaging in conversation with numerous other participants is that there are (at least) five essential ingredients that must co-exist to ensure the success of an IPD project:

1. Enter into new forms of contractual relationships such as AIA Docs, AGC Consensus 300, IFOA (Integrated Form of Agreement as used by Sutter Health), etc.

2. Use model-based design that employs multiple special-purpose BIMs.

3. Manage documentation, capture decisions, agree on workflows and streamline processes based upon best practices.

4. Focus on more effective communication, team collaboration and information-sharing with full team visibility. (In short, provide transparency).

5. Build a different project team culture based upon a “trust but verify” relationship model motivated by shared risk with shared reward.

It is our intention of elaborate on each of these 5 essential ingredients for IPD success. Watch for future postings!

The Cost of the Status Quo: Architects and Engineers waste 20% or more of their time searching for information about their projects!

Shockingly, in meetings with hundreds of firms, the response to this assertion has typically been undisputed or “at least 20%”. That’s one day per week of unproductive time looking for information that is “somewhere on the network”, not finding it and more often than not having to recreate it. The cause is well understood given the sheer volume of information being generated on every project plus the demands of the day job denying even the most diligent project team member the time needed to save everything correctly. Some firms have tried to address this problem by implementing either a document management system (vault) or Sharepoint (library) but very often with failed results. Principles regularly tell me that getting project staff to fill out their time sheets is difficult enough so therefore it is not surprising that they refuse to apply the time and discipline needed to follow the rules of a highly structured filing system or make the extra effort required to add meta-data tags to facilitate easy retrieval at a later date. So what is the alternative?

Firstly, the design process is iterative and the project information it creates is dynamic rather than static. Secondly, every member of the project team (including all of the external consultants) is an originator of different parts of the project data set. Therefore the problem is one of how best to manage unstructured project information which is always being shared and often being communicated on an ad-hoc basis. By defining the problem more accurately, Newforma has intentionally taken a different approach in developing its project information management (PIM) solution. To quote Ken Herold, Chief Knowledge Officer of HOK Architects, “a more pragmatic and much more affordable solution involves simply using Newforma Project Center to index all your project information to enable users to search any project in their office or even across the company wide network just like searching the web. The time savings creates more billable hours on a project or can be spent on other initiatives like being trained on BIM.” HOK deployed Newforma Project Center enterprise wide in July 2007 and continue to use the solution in all 26 of their offices worldwide today.

To learn more about why Newforma is committed to an 'indexed based search' approach to managing project information as the right paradigm for architects, engineers and construction firms, view our recorded webinar “For knowledge mining, reuse or recall – the value of full-text search”.

An invitation to join us in a critical conversation…….

Our industry is facing tectonic shifts in the way it executes building and infrastructure projects. Will integrated project delivery improve on time completion within budget ? Should building information modeling center around one massive model or be managed as a series of special purpose BIM’s ? Can new forms of contract like multi-partner agreements really change the adversarial behaviors of the past ? Which open data standards will prevail to facilitate the necessary exchange of project information? What best practices are being implemented by other firms that will give them competitive advantage? How do you take advantage of new software delivery models ? Are you managing your project information effectively and transparently ? Have you calculated the cost of the status quo ? Lots of issues remain that need to be addressed and resolved over time through healthy debate (no, not the healthcare debate!), bold experimentation, dedicated effort, ongoing perseverance and yes, also some failures.

Our intent in creating this Newforma Blog is to “host a conversation” by industry stakeholders to discuss each of these and other closely related questions that are facing us all. We look forward to sharing our thoughts and posting observations as our contribution to promote discussion and encourage an active dialogue via your comments.

Unlike the discussion forum on our user community site (which by popular demand is both product centric and technical in nature), and unlike our traditional whitepapers (that are both static and only provide a one-way communication), we are adding this interactive blog to explore the business issues, industry trends and technology that will shape new and improved best practices for architects, engineers and construction firms. Recurring themes will include project information management (PIM), integrated project delivery (IPD), work processes that support model based design (BIM), virtual construction, managing a federated project model, the purpose driven exchange of information, open data standards, change management for technology implementation and the cost of the status quo.

Our desire is to both inform and to learn from our mutual exchange of ideas. Ideally our contributions and the comments that they generate will stimulate and expand your thinking and offer you different perspectives and insights. We may even throw in a little controversy for good measure along the way!

So whether you just choose to read our blog postings or join our conversation, thank you for your interest and we welcome your participation.