Technology forces us to evaluate how we conduct
business. How that advancement takes
place depends mostly on our approach to it and what risks we are willing to
take. When making the decision to
embrace BIM, it needs to be with all attention moving forward and no thoughts of
going back. Christopher Nolan’s The Dark
Knight Rises1 gives a great illustration of how failure can result
when holding onto something out of the fear of failure. The prison pit provides a clear view
of freedom to the sky. The only way out
is to climb the walls and make a far reaching jump near the top. Before Bruce was sent down, there had
only been one successful attempt at the jump by a child.
Every man that attempted had failed and some even died.
A lot of complaints about Revit tend
to be about the aesthetic and how Revit drawings don’t look like AutoCAD
drawings. Why should they? Why approach
a new design platform with the standards from an old platform still in
use? Revit is not a drafting tool, but a
design tool. Utilizing drafters to
document 3D content in Revit is missing the point of BIM in Revit. Drafters may just be reproducing hand-drawn
markups with no knowledge of the design.
At a minimum, designers with an understanding of the systems should be
modeling the work. Components should be
set to provide engineering feedback that aid in layouts and sizing.
We tend to fall back on things that we know. When tasked with learning something new, we
may only reach as far as we can while still holding onto where we are. Bruce Wayne made several attempts at the jump
and failed to get within grasp of the other ledge. He would fall and be caught by the safety
rope and lowered to safety. He knew that
he would try and if he failed, he could go back down to what he knew, even if
he didn’t want to be there. It was the
revelation that the child, who successfully made the jump, did so without the
rope that changed him. Bruce Wayne had
to let go of anything holding him back to make the jump, including his safety
line. He had to put all his effort into
getting across the gap, because failure this time would cost him everything.
In a recent discussion, the topic was brought up about new software. A question was asked, ‘How do you get people to use the new software and stop using the old?” The answer, quite simply, was to remove the old software from the computer and force the use of the new technology. This doesn’t mean get rid of AutoCAD, but to stop the use of AutoCAD as a fallback when things don’t work in Revit. Focus on the task and remove all clouded thought that complicates the process of rolling out new techniques. Focus on the big picture of a project and not how to do the old method in the new software. With everything on the line, Bruce made the jump and succeeded in escaping the pit.
My first attempt at Revit was not easy, but failure was not
an option. We started with nothing, but
finished with issued plans and a growing sense of accomplishment. The goal has always been to improve
capabilities in Revit, not how to manage Revit as part of an old system of
AutoCAD. Make the jump as the child did
without the rope. Once that jump has
been made, you might understand the look of success and relief on Bruce’s face.
-Craig
1 The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale
