This video is spot on. As a BIM manager for an MEP firm I am surrounded by people not open to too many ideas/changes which makes it really challenging to implement certain things. BIM is an evolving field in which not only you need to learn fast but also master it so you can manipulate it to your specific needs. Thank you 🙏
Glad to see resonance in my experience with an MEP BIM Manager also. It can be hard dealing with people behind the best practices of the time, but each day we have more and more coming to see the world the way we do - keep it up!
I've worked as a BIM manager and I must say this video is really spot on. The fact that people don't understand you makes it even harder to get the job done. They even going to start doubting you because you want a long term solution. The board I worked for expected results right away, but that is not what a bim manager is about. They didn't understand and they suddenly ended the contract together with me. Reason was that I didn't met the requirements from role as a BIM manger. Funny fact was that they didn't even know the functions of a BIM manager in advance, they were just starting with it. So I learned a lot from this experience. Try to make them clear what your strategy is and how you work. Create a roadmap for yourself and for the others. Don't stick with one project. Create solutions for al projects, not just a single one. Make em clear no direct results will be happening, this is something that doesn't occur right away. It's all about process management and creating the most optimal data flow for the company (step by step). But you need a good vision in this job, so research is super vital !! Keep up with the latest tech on the market, it's probably the most important thing you are doing. This way you can keep the ship steady in the right direction.
That's a shame that the board didn't appreciate what the role truly required and the time it can take to turn things around - it's a tough job sometimes! I find communication and transparency are difficult to maintain but crucial to keeping trust of those around you. Will definitely keep pursuing new and current technology, I hope to eventually develop my Python skills to explore the fundamentals of Machine based learning in time.
@@AussieBIMGuru Yes the board was all about reputation of the company. They just want to say that they are doing 'BIM' but they don't even know what it's all about :p. I'm never returning to a contractor ever again. Mindset from contractors is really traditional and they are scared of software :p. I'm now moving to a high tech company where they can understand me :)
Spot on definition. I am in complete agreement. I think videos like this are very important, because as you mentioned being a BIM manager is a very isolated role, unless working in very large firms with established BIM departments. it can be challenging for a BIM Manager to evaluate yourself, as there are nobody capable of making such an evaluation beside yourself. I believe the pros in general are quite straight forward and obvious to most, but the cons and challenges that comes with the role, not so much. Therefore sharing the principles of the expected challanges is helpful to people thinking about seeking a future in BIM as well as verifying that the frustrations other BIM managers face are mostly similar across the industry. A good confidence boost.
Thanks Kasper, one of my goals with the video was definitely to assure other BIM managers we're not alone by any means - even if at our periphery we can be sometimes! I didn't used to self evaluate my progress often enough, and i found once i did my appreciation for the role and how it can truly benifit a company became much more realised, and apparent to those around me. Glad you enjoyed the video, and it's great to hear from like minds on these topics, thanks for sharing! LI connection req. sent, I'm fairly active via there as well, and meet a lot of BIM managers through my network there as well.
i work as a draftsman for 13 years and i`m moving to canada with hope of being a BIM manager but after this video i started to get concern, I'm 35 years old, if i wanted to evaluate my skills with you it would be 50% of your skills, i dont know whether i`ll be capable or not, though i learn from your videos every day, thank you
My first piece of advice is to try not to measure yourself against others, set goals against your own level of experience and use this as a strategy to build upon. Age is but a number, and I'm sure you have plenty of experience to date in other areas besides the BIM Management field - use these as a strong foundation for applying BIM to projects. Make sure that no matter what age you are, begin with technical/coordination roles before aiming for the management roles - practical experience is essential at that level.
Love the video! I relate to a lot of what you are saying. I have been lucky enough to get into a couple companies that had great structures in place, giving you a path for growth, but at the same time allowing you to create your own path into new technologies. I hope to see firms, allowing folks to break from BIM management type roles into roles such as data management, machine learning, deep learning, data science, reality capture, computational design, etc. Each of those disciplines are robust and to truly leverage the power we must have the chance to specialize. Instead of being Jack of All Trades Master of None/Some, this happens a lot in integrated design/build firms, at least from my experience. Part of the problem for some BIM people is wanting to be in everything. Oversimplification of software and tools are a huge reason for lack of investment and growth, which gives you half baked solutions. I do think depending on the company, high level management positions, having a generalist knowledge base is very helpful. There are so many variables. My experience is from firms ranging between 500-1000 which is much different then 200 or 10,000.
Thanks mate, I get what you mean - it can be hard to be effective as a jack of all trades, which BIM Management has a tendency to become when strategic insight isn't embraced properly by a company. I find myself slipping into the computational stream as a side interest, although I'm keen to try and make the strategic level role my end destination - I find I'm ultimately more effective here given the right resources to delegate and manage (which is often not the reality...). I do have that generalist knowledge base now, so I agree that specialising doesn't necessarily detriment the overall skill-set (we keep some knives in our belt vs. sharpening them all). I'm so glad you highlighted the issue of over simplification - far too often I'm told to reduce complexity to the point of locking off all intelligent avenues simply because the end user can't 'understand' it and wont begin to try to learn. Such a stunt to the industry I agree. I'm glad there's some relate-ability in here for many scales of company - I'm still in awe of those such as yourself who can make it work at the super-scale!
Thank you for this beautiful episode. I really like your work and you always mention the most critical points mostly ignored by others. When I watch your series I always feel like we are not alone! :) Please keep up the good work.
Thank you for sharing this topic. I am not a BIM manager but I work with BIM as an electrical engineer. What I see often is that people in the offices don’t even bother what BIM managers do and and that makes them isolate them selves which I totally understand. Of course everything is a balance there. In the video you spoke about communication and that is one of the most important things in a workplace. I see often that people are going into groups, and that’s okay but it’s important to welcome the isolated people in the groups. At least ask them if they want to have lunch with you whether you are a BIM manager or not! In general just be nice to others except their role and how they are! Great video. Just started to follow you. 👍🏽
Thanks for your insights, communication is almost always the solution to AEC company problems - a great observation and definitely the best way to prevent isolation occuring for any staff member. Great to have you in the channel community, welcome!
Amazing video spot on. I face this issue on daily basis. Specially dealing with people. You can set lot of BIM process but it is people who will be following this process. So you have to manage people as well. I will say it is 50% people management in BIM manager's role
you hit some great topics on here. also i can relate to being a young manager being thrown into management was a shock to me while my pier where field engineers. I also was thrown on a very complexed project a football stadium expansion doubled with an renovation all into one. I would say things you left off is dealing with SHITTY sub contractors. How they can really make or break your schedule with constantly having to cut out their excuses.
Yes dealing with parallel trades can be a real challenge sometimes, although I found as a BIM manager this impacted the teams and their projects more than my role.
Congratulations, an exciting time when first coming into a role like this! Glad you could relate to the video somewhat - each person's journey is slightly unique. You may enjoy this video also, where I share my journey and some advice based on my experience to others in similar career paths; th-cam.com/video/9mDESAsqpec/w-d-xo.html
Very insightful video! I am an architect who will be moving into a BIM / computational design specialist role with only a few years of industry experience. Seeing that youre in a similar position now, I wanted to ask which of your experiences in the video are still true for you now and what is different? And what advice can you offer to someone transitioning from an architect role to something workflow management focused? Cheers!
Do BIM managers model and drafting at all or all they do is... managing? I love modelling and making drawings and i think i will miss modelling if i become a BIM manager.
It depends on company scale and how they manage their staff/teams. Usually in smaller companies you would still get your hands on projects when they get desperate, or may be responsible for the largest project in the office. You may be better off exploring a BIM coordinator role which usually sits in between technical and management work/tasks.
I usually got the same thought. I would love being good at modelling..and i'm afraid sometimes, BIM Manager describe theimselves as "clash seekers only" ..and it's not cool :/
@@denispommier5494 yeah some BIM managers are quite elitist/unsupportive of others - they feel like they should be the 'best' at everything. It can be quite counterproductive. A big part of BIM management is knowing just enough about a lot of things in order to be able to guide and manage many that actually probably know more about specific things.
@@AussieBIMGuru if i stay a cad technician working with Revit, could i still have the same compensation progress as bim managers? Or it's a fact that bim managers will always get paid more than cad(Revit) technicians?
Did you ever record a video on unravelling someone else's Revit model. From having multiple reference planes that stick elements together or are hosted by models by others, plus other people's models not having the right survey points, project base points & then not transferring project info as per the BEP? Fun eh?! :-)
Unfortunately not. Hard to do this as these things tend to be intellectual property! In most offices I tend to encourage clients never to 'pass over' other companies models as theyre usually full of custom standards and content (often very bad too) that a company would never be able to effectively pilot vs using their own standards. Reference only, to guide a remodel is my recommendation in most cases.
In some area where BIM application is not very common, people sometimes think BIM people are just draftman. How do you response to that? Cheers mate. Thanks for all your dedication you put in.
@@AussieBIMGuru Thanks for your reply. I am currently working as BIM coordinator in HK and have been in the field for about 2 years. Right now I am looking forward in Programming + BIM. I believe python is the well-adopted language across the industry? Do you have any course recommended for Python in BIM?
@@chanyiuhing it depends on what you want to apply it towards. There's dynamo, pyrevit, conda, ghpython and many other options. I have a python series on my channel in a playlist that covers fundamentals, and a miniseries for python and dynamo. Most of the hard parts actually relate to API's and they're hard to teach as they have lot in them. Research is best for that part.
Thanks Aussie..It was enlightening. You mentioned “coding” 😳 Do BIM managers code??? Plus what pc would you recommend for BIM management. Is a Mac with boot camp a good idea?
You're welcome! Some of us do indeed code. Typically in C# or Python depending on the needs of the tools we use or develop. I use Dynamo and Python quite extensively for workflow automation and more complex geometric functions in Revit. I would usually recommend not going with Mac as a lot of essential BIM platforms only work via a partition setup. Macs typically have worse specs for the same price as well when it comes to graphics and RAM.
I guess... I think people should do research and form an opinion on what they are worth also though. It is important not to just take the attitude of 'that guy is paid x dollars a year, so I must be paid the same'.
This video is spot on. As a BIM manager for an MEP firm I am surrounded by people not open to too many ideas/changes which makes it really challenging to implement certain things. BIM is an evolving field in which not only you need to learn fast but also master it so you can manipulate it to your specific needs. Thank you 🙏
Glad to see resonance in my experience with an MEP BIM Manager also. It can be hard dealing with people behind the best practices of the time, but each day we have more and more coming to see the world the way we do - keep it up!
@@AussieBIMGuru thank you for your videos. I find them very informative. Keep them coming.
I've worked as a BIM manager and I must say this video is really spot on. The fact that people don't understand you makes it even harder to get the job done. They even going to start doubting you because you want a long term solution. The board I worked for expected results right away, but that is not what a bim manager is about. They didn't understand and they suddenly ended the contract together with me. Reason was that I didn't met the requirements from role as a BIM manger. Funny fact was that they didn't even know the functions of a BIM manager in advance, they were just starting with it. So I learned a lot from this experience. Try to make them clear what your strategy is and how you work. Create a roadmap for yourself and for the others. Don't stick with one project. Create solutions for al projects, not just a single one. Make em clear no direct results will be happening, this is something that doesn't occur right away. It's all about process management and creating the most optimal data flow for the company (step by step). But you need a good vision in this job, so research is super vital !! Keep up with the latest tech on the market, it's probably the most important thing you are doing. This way you can keep the ship steady in the right direction.
That's a shame that the board didn't appreciate what the role truly required and the time it can take to turn things around - it's a tough job sometimes!
I find communication and transparency are difficult to maintain but crucial to keeping trust of those around you.
Will definitely keep pursuing new and current technology, I hope to eventually develop my Python skills to explore the fundamentals of Machine based learning in time.
@@AussieBIMGuru Yes the board was all about reputation of the company. They just want to say that they are doing 'BIM' but they don't even know what it's all about :p. I'm never returning to a contractor ever again. Mindset from contractors is really traditional and they are scared of software :p. I'm now moving to a high tech company where they can understand me :)
@@surferboy198 I'm sure you'll find them, just keep your head held high and your mind wide open :)
@@AussieBIMGuru I will! I'm already close to singing for a high tech company :). Thanks man!
Spot on definition. I am in complete agreement.
I think videos like this are very important, because as you mentioned being a BIM manager is a very isolated role, unless working in very large firms with established BIM departments. it can be challenging for a BIM Manager to evaluate yourself, as there are nobody capable of making such an evaluation beside yourself.
I believe the pros in general are quite straight forward and obvious to most, but the cons and challenges that comes with the role, not so much.
Therefore sharing the principles of the expected challanges is helpful to people thinking about seeking a future in BIM as well as verifying that the frustrations other BIM managers face are mostly similar across the industry.
A good confidence boost.
Thanks Kasper, one of my goals with the video was definitely to assure other BIM managers we're not alone by any means - even if at our periphery we can be sometimes!
I didn't used to self evaluate my progress often enough, and i found once i did my appreciation for the role and how it can truly benifit a company became much more realised, and apparent to those around me.
Glad you enjoyed the video, and it's great to hear from like minds on these topics, thanks for sharing!
LI connection req. sent, I'm fairly active via there as well, and meet a lot of BIM managers through my network there as well.
i work as a draftsman for 13 years and i`m moving to canada with hope of being a BIM manager but after this video i started to get concern, I'm 35 years old, if i wanted to evaluate my skills with you it would be 50% of your skills, i dont know whether i`ll be capable or not, though i learn from your videos every day, thank you
My first piece of advice is to try not to measure yourself against others, set goals against your own level of experience and use this as a strategy to build upon. Age is but a number, and I'm sure you have plenty of experience to date in other areas besides the BIM Management field - use these as a strong foundation for applying BIM to projects. Make sure that no matter what age you are, begin with technical/coordination roles before aiming for the management roles - practical experience is essential at that level.
Love the video! I relate to a lot of what you are saying. I have been lucky enough to get into a couple companies that had great structures in place, giving you a path for growth, but at the same time allowing you to create your own path into new technologies. I hope to see firms, allowing folks to break from BIM management type roles into roles such as data management, machine learning, deep learning, data science, reality capture, computational design, etc. Each of those disciplines are robust and to truly leverage the power we must have the chance to specialize. Instead of being Jack of All Trades Master of None/Some, this happens a lot in integrated design/build firms, at least from my experience. Part of the problem for some BIM people is wanting to be in everything. Oversimplification of software and tools are a huge reason for lack of investment and growth, which gives you half baked solutions. I do think depending on the company, high level management positions, having a generalist knowledge base is very helpful. There are so many variables. My experience is from firms ranging between 500-1000 which is much different then 200 or 10,000.
Thanks mate, I get what you mean - it can be hard to be effective as a jack of all trades, which BIM Management has a tendency to become when strategic insight isn't embraced properly by a company. I find myself slipping into the computational stream as a side interest, although I'm keen to try and make the strategic level role my end destination - I find I'm ultimately more effective here given the right resources to delegate and manage (which is often not the reality...). I do have that generalist knowledge base now, so I agree that specialising doesn't necessarily detriment the overall skill-set (we keep some knives in our belt vs. sharpening them all).
I'm so glad you highlighted the issue of over simplification - far too often I'm told to reduce complexity to the point of locking off all intelligent avenues simply because the end user can't 'understand' it and wont begin to try to learn. Such a stunt to the industry I agree.
I'm glad there's some relate-ability in here for many scales of company - I'm still in awe of those such as yourself who can make it work at the super-scale!
Thank you for this beautiful episode. I really like your work and you always mention the most critical points mostly ignored by others. When I watch your series I always feel like we are not alone! :) Please keep up the good work.
You're most welcome! I hear these points from most I meet so I assure you we're not alone by any means.
Thank you for sharing this topic. I am not a BIM manager but I work with BIM as an electrical engineer.
What I see often is that people in the offices don’t even bother what BIM managers do and and that makes them isolate them selves which I totally understand. Of course everything is a balance there.
In the video you spoke about communication and that is one of the most important things in a workplace. I see often that people are going into groups, and that’s okay but it’s important to welcome the isolated people in the groups. At least ask them if they want to have lunch with you whether you are a BIM manager or not! In general just be nice to others except their role and how they are! Great video. Just started to follow you. 👍🏽
Thanks for your insights, communication is almost always the solution to AEC company problems - a great observation and definitely the best way to prevent isolation occuring for any staff member.
Great to have you in the channel community, welcome!
Also great channel, really like the formatting and your presentation quality is amazing for just starting off!
Subbed as well, keep up the great work
Thank You very much Gavin! I appreciate it.
Amazing video spot on. I face this issue on daily basis. Specially dealing with people. You can set lot of BIM process but it is people who will be following this process. So you have to manage people as well. I will say it is 50% people management in BIM manager's role
Yep you're bang on the money, communication and people skills are what tend to set apart the more successful BIM managers from the super tech ones.
Great video! BIM management looks like a tough position. Meetings, meetings and more meetings
Yep, it's important to try not to get buried in meetings my nontechnical staff members who want everything to be reported on but never actioned!
Perfect ! I have been faced with some factors mentioned here but, you explained some factors that i have never met and this is amazing!! Thanks a lot
You're most welcome!
you hit some great topics on here. also i can relate to being a young manager being thrown into management was a shock to me while my pier where field engineers. I also was thrown on a very complexed project a football stadium expansion doubled with an renovation all into one. I would say things you left off is dealing with SHITTY sub contractors. How they can really make or break your schedule with constantly having to cut out their excuses.
Yes dealing with parallel trades can be a real challenge sometimes, although I found as a BIM manager this impacted the teams and their projects more than my role.
I can totally relate to your thoughts Gavin. Well done, in my opinion.
Thanks Mark, always great to know we're not alone in our experiences!
Thank you for this presentation. I am new to a BIM management role moving up from a project architect. Very insightful and can relate to your points.
Congratulations, an exciting time when first coming into a role like this! Glad you could relate to the video somewhat - each person's journey is slightly unique.
You may enjoy this video also, where I share my journey and some advice based on my experience to others in similar career paths;
th-cam.com/video/9mDESAsqpec/w-d-xo.html
Very insightful video! I am an architect who will be moving into a BIM / computational design specialist role with only a few years of industry experience. Seeing that youre in a similar position now, I wanted to ask which of your experiences in the video are still true for you now and what is different? And what advice can you offer to someone transitioning from an architect role to something workflow management focused? Cheers!
Great one Gavin, keep it up 👍👍👍
Cheers mate, will do, and likewise!
Great video!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
Do BIM managers model and drafting at all or all they do is... managing?
I love modelling and making drawings and i think i will miss modelling if i become a BIM manager.
It depends on company scale and how they manage their staff/teams. Usually in smaller companies you would still get your hands on projects when they get desperate, or may be responsible for the largest project in the office.
You may be better off exploring a BIM coordinator role which usually sits in between technical and management work/tasks.
I usually got the same thought. I would love being good at modelling..and i'm afraid sometimes, BIM Manager describe theimselves as "clash seekers only" ..and it's not cool :/
@@denispommier5494 yeah some BIM managers are quite elitist/unsupportive of others - they feel like they should be the 'best' at everything. It can be quite counterproductive.
A big part of BIM management is knowing just enough about a lot of things in order to be able to guide and manage many that actually probably know more about specific things.
@@AussieBIMGuru priceless answer, thank you for that !!!
@@AussieBIMGuru if i stay a cad technician working with Revit, could i still have the same compensation progress as bim managers?
Or it's a fact that bim managers will always get paid more than cad(Revit) technicians?
Did you ever record a video on unravelling someone else's Revit model. From having multiple reference planes that stick elements together or are hosted by models by others, plus other people's models not having the right survey points, project base points & then not transferring project info as per the BEP? Fun eh?! :-)
Unfortunately not. Hard to do this as these things tend to be intellectual property!
In most offices I tend to encourage clients never to 'pass over' other companies models as theyre usually full of custom standards and content (often very bad too) that a company would never be able to effectively pilot vs using their own standards.
Reference only, to guide a remodel is my recommendation in most cases.
In some area where BIM application is not very common, people sometimes think BIM people are just draftman. How do you response to that?
Cheers mate. Thanks for all your dedication you put in.
The typical rebuttal is that BIM is about the management of information, of which drawings are merely one way of conveying.
@@AussieBIMGuru Thanks for your reply. I am currently working as BIM coordinator in HK and have been in the field for about 2 years. Right now I am looking forward in Programming + BIM. I believe python is the well-adopted language across the industry? Do you have any course recommended for Python in BIM?
@@chanyiuhing it depends on what you want to apply it towards. There's dynamo, pyrevit, conda, ghpython and many other options. I have a python series on my channel in a playlist that covers fundamentals, and a miniseries for python and dynamo. Most of the hard parts actually relate to API's and they're hard to teach as they have lot in them. Research is best for that part.
@@AussieBIMGuru thanks for your advice!
Thanks Aussie..It was enlightening. You mentioned “coding” 😳 Do BIM managers code??? Plus what pc would you recommend for BIM management. Is a Mac with boot camp a good idea?
You're welcome!
Some of us do indeed code. Typically in C# or Python depending on the needs of the tools we use or develop. I use Dynamo and Python quite extensively for workflow automation and more complex geometric functions in Revit.
I would usually recommend not going with Mac as a lot of essential BIM platforms only work via a partition setup. Macs typically have worse specs for the same price as well when it comes to graphics and RAM.
@@AussieBIMGuru Interesting! thanks a lot.
@@efemena1009 you're welcome!
How about AI and its impact on BIM industry? Don't you think it may takeover BIM jobs ?
I doubt it, but it will likely become more relevant over time. It may create new jobs whilst making others less relevant.
If you won't tell and no one tell. about their salaries.
Nobody will know when she/he being stolen
I guess... I think people should do research and form an opinion on what they are worth also though. It is important not to just take the attitude of 'that guy is paid x dollars a year, so I must be paid the same'.