shelidonJune 13, 2018Leave a Comment

Post originally authored for the blog of Strategie Digitali, on June 13th 2018.

It’s that time of the year again. Proposals were submitted for Autodesk University 2018 and now it’s time for the Community to vote on which proposals they would like to see come to life in Vegas next November. These are our proposals, should you wish to dig them up and vote for them. And, of course, fingers crossed hoping to see you all in Vegas next year as well.

A class about BIM implementation:

• So, you’ve implemented BIM. Now what?
  Implementing BIM is a challenging process and several are the strategies you can enact in order to achieve its goal: for everybody to work with the new methods and tools, with self-sufficient proficiency and a smooth workflow. Once you’ve achieved this goal, however, a bigger challenge will present itself: how to maintain BIM proficiency in your Firm and how to reach you pruduction peak? The end of an implementation process is the moment where your staff start to change in need: strict support is not needed anymore, but you will find a new set questions arising from you staff and your management. Training will became complex to deliver. During the BIM implementation you staff will have changed, with several new BIM professional being integrated in the office hierarchy now is it the time to stabilize the roles and integrate them. Finally, you will be faced with enthusiastic new proposals for both standards and workflows. This class will walk you through these and other challenges.

A class about training:

• Keep Teaching, Keep Learning: How to set up a Succesful in-house Training Programme.
  Training is one of the most critical keypoints during an implementation.
  This class will explore the main keypoints to be kept in mind while setting up an in-house training, such as: 1. Engagement. Professionals bring their own experience to the table, so their learning path needs to be structured in such a way that they will be allowed to feel engaged. 2. Effectiveness. A business training is successful and sustainable when, for every hour of training, the new acquired knowledge will help people save more than one hour. 3. Safeness. The essence of training is to allow error without consequence. 4. Customization. Training shouldn’t be generalist, but should be highly tailored. We’ll provide techniques to assess the actual need of participants and samples of different activities, from traditional workshop structures to more engaging cutting-edge methods like Lego Serious Play®.

A class about project management:

• The Highest Challenge in the Collaborative Process: beeing the BIM leading Consultant.
  Designing a project in a collaborative environment is possible only when a good collaborative strategy is successfully deployed. This type of process requires compliance to standards and tailored guidelines, based on the project goals and needs and on the profiles of the consultants involved. Like in and Orchestra, every actor needs to perform the right action at the right time, under the guidance of a skilled director. The Director on the other hand needs to be skilled enough to being able to lead and coordinate the different voices in the chorus. In a BIM collaborative process, the director is the BIM leading consultant. In this class you will learn how to lead a collaborative process from the very beginning up the late stages. We will introduce to you all the needed tools and strategies to put in place a workflow and the needed documents. As final step we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the entire ecosystem when you have an architect as the BIM leading consultant.
  You might have seen a first version of this class in Singapore, you might see an updated one in BILT Europe but this doesn’t mean you won’t see a yet updated version of it in Vegas. We never teach the same class twice. We’re crazy that way.

Three classes involving Computational Design, Generative Design and Dynamo:

• Adapt or die: clever ways to exploit adaptive components for your everyday design. Double lab.
  Have you ever heard somebody saying “this cannot be done in Revit” and how crazy does that make you? Were you ever the one saying that, while trying to shape something in a form that just didn’t please Revit? Revit Adaptive Components are a powerful tool and sometimes the answer to all those “this cannot be done in Revit” gibberish. The first steps of approaching this modelling environment will be: a clear understanding of few key concepts you really need to master in order to understand their behavior in the digital world and an equally clear understanding of how your elements will be built. After modelling some complex geometries in Revit you will produce useful information about construction and fabrication . In the end laboratory, you will experience some computational design workflows, based on adaptive components and Dynamo. This lab will provide you with tools to manage several different scenarios with no stress.
  This class arrives after a version presented at BILT Asia, involving no Dynamo, and another longer version we’ll present at BILT North America this August. Third time’s a charm!
• BIM for Hotels – More Revit automation for rule-based spaces. Instructional Demo.
  If you’ve ever designed the zoning of a building, any building, you know that functionality of spaces can be more important than anything. The more standardized operation is, the more organized are the set of rules you have to take into consideration when designing a space. Examples have been given in the past, about sports stadiums, airports and terminal stations. Generative design is the way of translating into computer language what happens into your mind: a set of conditions that needs to be respected in order for your project to work. A hotel room is one of those distinctively rule-based spaces: there are a group of standardized key-factor which determine its exact configuration. Once you determine those rules you can use them to: – Create the framework for a rapid generative exploration of alternative configurations of the room; – Rapidly highlight discordances between brief expectations and the given boundaries; – Check and double-check your ideas against operational routines.
  Were you there in 2016? Well, we’ve got news and updates for you. You weren’t? Well, there’s a first time for everything.
• The BIM Coordinator Defender: 15 Dynamo scripts for your model management survival. Instructional Demo.
  Do you remember that time when the intern was left alone roaming in the model and resized all doors but didn’t rename types accordingly? And when that highly creative team was left alone half a day and you came back only to find out they’ve been doing everything with filled regions? And that lowercase all to uppercase incident… that one never gets old. Well, if you are into model management you know a little bit of Dynamo will make all your troubles go away. There are scripts for efficiently starting up a project, scripts for everyday use, scripts for your regular model maintenance and scripts to deal with emergencies. In this class we’ll share few stories from our experience and showcase a set of fifteen dynamo scripts for your model management survival. Fifteen plus one. Because sometimes surviving is not enough. Sometimes, in order to survive, you need to strike back with a vengeance. The class will also involve the use of Trello, Google Drive and a top hat.

Three classes involving advanced techniques for facilitation, including LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®. Yes. You heard right.

• BIM Maturity Assessment with constructivism, fish bowls and LEGO®.
  Change is tough and promoting change in a Company can be painful.
  But the implementation of change doesn’t need to be based on conflict. In the implementation of BIM, awareness and alignment of vision is a crucial first step: the Company needs to be aware of its current workflows, its business strengths and areas of further expansion; managers need to be aware of the responsibilities they will have during the process; people need to be aware of what change will mean to them.
  Most assessment processes are based on this: a complete survey and an objective review of the current situation.
  But how do you separate what’s objectively present and what is perceived? The perceived situation is sometimes even more important than the actual one and the only way to survey that is by giving people a chance to speak their mind. Among the different techniques to empower people with the right to self-assessment, the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method is one of the most powerful.
• Team Building of a BIM team with systems theory, constructionism and LEGO®.
  As a collaborative method, BIM requires teams to be connected and synergic. You can’t rely anymore on individual excellencies, as the best individual might perform poorly if it’s not integrated in his/her task team.
  Team building techniques thus become a crucial part of the skill set for a good BIM Project Manager.
  This class will present different team building techniques based on Papert’s Theory of Constructionism and on the notion that people need to be allowed to build their own place in the team and to negotiate working models in a flexible, self-determined way. If facilitated correctly, the group might propose models that span from the Scrum
  Created in 1996, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is an experimental process designed to enhance business performance through the usage of Serious Games technique.
• BIM project management and real time strategy: divergent thinking with LEGO® bricks.
  The managing of a project in BIM is a delicate balance of good strategy, forward thinking and adaptability: starting with the end in mind might not always be that easy and when unforeseen elements come into the play it’s time to adapt or die.
  Divergent thinking is a thought process often used in problem solving and particularly suitable for a situation in which strategy needs to be developed in real time, following a set of principles but being able to span in different direction. As a method that promotes the creative exploration of possibilities, it’s particularly suitable to be used in combination with serious games and playful thinking. The class will present a set of them, involving playing cards, cookies and LEGO® bricks.

Voting is on! You can vote for classes here.

In the next few days we’ll publish a selection of what we voted for. It’s going to be another amazing AU.