The AECO Landscape
The AECO Landscape in relation to Autodesk® Revit® and furthermore, BIM, is still a volatile place for many teams and firms.
This is due to several components, but I feel it is primarily one of Perspective. I find too many players either do not realize or they mis-strategize projects. In order to get the best possible results in a predictable manner, one must have an honest perspective as to the ultimate success drivers; too often the success of BIM is left to chance.
I would like you to take one idea on-board and if we can agree on this one point, I think it will show that there are myriad good and bad ways to approach BIM; whether the (final) Building, the Information or “the” Model. The concept is:
The Worst Possible Project for Everyone Is Bad
That’s it—that’s all we need to suppose.
With that one assumption we can easily postulate that there is a positive converse; a ‘Good’ if you will, creating a continuum where there are myriad possible ideals and plateaus that are all certainly better than the worst possible project for everyone on the planet. (Yes, I am also invoking a bit of the butterfly effect, too.)
There is no one “best,” outright, and as I see it there are many possible good to great places on the continuum to be. But again, every increment toward “the best possible project for everyone” we can get our projects and firms, obviously the better off we’ll be.
The Best Possible Project for Everyone Is Good
If we can agree on these ideas then we can honestly discuss strategies and furthermore, strategies for success. First though, let’s dive into some approaches that are too oft used in AEC and O: No explicit strategy.
No Strategy Is Still a Strategy—Just a Terrible One
Having no consciously devised strategy leaves intact an unpredictable approach at best and a disastrous one at worst.
Holding such an unadvised business model is further an untenable path and ultimately and consequentially will negatively impact project outcomes, firm growth, profit and reputation, if not its viability as the business climates cycle.
Using no explicit strategy can be thought of as a generator (of a sort) of AECO climate change. Similarly, (but to a more complete degree) as in the Earthly climate change, “we” are in control of it—we are its generator, though a main distinction between these examples is in AECO there is arguably still time to reverse bad approaches.
The Strategy Continuum | The AECO Landscape
Much like “The Moral Landscape” (see Figure 1), I propose there is “An AECO Landscape.”
Does it have moral components to it? Perhaps.
I do see business morality, as it were, to be affected by this concept, but human morality? That I will discuss at length in a future installment, but for now I am simply looking at our industry in a new light—a continuum or landscape of possible states of being where there is a good (or best) possible, as well as a bad (or worst) possible, and nearly infinite possibilities in between.
The closer we can drive our projects and firms toward the good end of this spectrum onto one of the peaks, the closer we’d be to achieving our short- and long-term objectives: success and growth.
Figure 1: The AECO Landscape principle was inspired by some of Sam Harris’s concepts in The Moral Landscape
In future articles I will be expanding these principles and will make the effort to get solid numbers as to BIM adoption rates and successes, etc. to try to model an AECO Landscape based on the current state of our industry with real data calculated to be able to compare “what is” with the “The Best Possible Project for Everyone” and see where we may each fall on such a continuum. Then I will put forth some ideas about how we might achieve results in line with the place we want to be
