Introducing a new tool without stalling the work

A new tool competes for the same people who have to keep the project moving. Configuration, template setup, data preparation, training and review all take hours before anyone knows whether the change will help. On an active job, those hours come out of the same weeks as the next coordination cycle and the next fabrication release.

That is not a reason to freeze every workflow until the next project. It is a reason to contain the change. We recommend a bounded trial: a scope that can absorb a correction, a recorded baseline, measures chosen in advance, a planned way back, an explicit information path and a written decision to expand, revise or stop.

Published guidance for building information modeling (BIM) supports piloting and preparation. The European Union BIM Task Group handbook, written for public-sector clients introducing BIM, recommends pilots, feedback and training.[1] UK BIM Framework guidance on mobilizing a delivery team covers testing information exchanges and procedures.[2] Neither prescribes the protocol below. It is Atlas's proposed practice for virtual design and construction (VDC) and coordination teams, not a guarantee of adoption or a return on investment.

Pick a scope that can absorb a correction

Start where a problem can be contained. Good candidates include one release package, one zone with schedule float, one system on one level, or an internal deliverable that is reviewed before anything leaves the team.

Avoid the area that is already late. If the new tool stalls, the work in that scope still needs a way to reach the shop.

Name two people before starting: the trial owner, who keeps the record, and the person who can stop the trial. Write down what happens to the scope if it stops.

Use information the project permits you to use. Synthetic or sanitized files are useful for training and for first technical checks. Before relying on the new process, test it on an authorized task with the complexity the team will actually face: the congested corridor, the late source revision, the consultant model built on a different template.

Record the baseline before the tool arrives

Write down how the work runs now: the steps, handoffs, approval points and the files that move between them. This alone can show that a delay sits in a handoff or an approval that no new software would change.

Observe enough ordinary work to cover normal variation. A single half-day can reveal a problem, but it may not represent a full coordination cycle.

Choose the measures before anyone sees a result. Candidates include:

• Staff hours per accepted deliverable
• Correction hours after internal review
• Reviewer hours per package
• Turnaround from source revision to released output
• Completeness of the information the next step needs

Use the same definitions before and during the trial. Record setup, configuration and training effort too, even if you report it separately. The companion piece on measuring coordination effort covers activity definitions in more detail.

Keep active labor separate from waiting

A package that waits two days for an answer has not necessarily consumed two days of labor. Three people correcting a problem for an hour have consumed three labor hours, even if the release date did not move.

Design-flow research separates worked time from elapsed time. Freire and Alarcón studied drawing cycle time on four projects in one design firm and found that drawings spent much of their elapsed cycle time waiting rather than being worked on.[4] A drawing waiting in a queue may be a delivery problem. It does not show that its author was idle for the same period.

For a tool trial, record both measures in separate columns. A tool can cut production hours while turnaround stays the same, because the package still waits for review. A change that removes a queue can shorten turnaround without reducing labor. Both outcomes can be useful; they are different outcomes.

Plan the way back before the first file moves

Record the export format, the authoritative file location and the procedure for returning to the current process. Check that the existing licenses, templates and access remain available while the trial runs.

Some changes are hard to reverse. Data may come to live only in the new system, a template may be rebuilt around it, or downstream tools may start to expect its output. The harder the reversal, the more the migration plan and its approval matter.

Make the information path explicit

Establish where project data will be processed, stored and shared before enabling a feature. Read the documentation for the actual feature and account configuration, not the product's general description.

Bluebeam's artificial intelligence (AI) transparency page shows why product-level assumptions are insufficient: it distinguishes features processed locally, features processed in the cloud, and permission-based sharing through integrations.[5] The applicable question is what this workflow does with this project's information.

Confirm the project's contract and security requirements with the people responsible for them before the trial starts. The companion piece on running AI on a job with restricted data covers that decision in more detail.

Decide to expand, revise or stop

Compare the trial with the baseline, explain any differences in scope and conditions, and include both the people who produce the work and those who review it. A process that saves production time while adding reviewer time may still be worth keeping, but the total matters.

Be clear about what the trial covered. Nath and colleagues re-engineered a precast shop-drawing process around BIM. They validated the quantity takeoff and shop-drawing components through a workshop and pilot, while experienced precasters estimated the performance of the whole future workflow.[6] The authors state that validating the whole workflow was outside their study.[6] A trial of one step supports a decision about that step. It does not prove a gain for the whole process.

The decision can be to expand, revise or stop. Each is a legitimate result if it follows from the record. Write down the decision and the reason. Treat hours released as capacity the team can redirect, not as a cash saving. If the answer is to expand, the next scope is the next trial, with its own baseline.

A one-page trial plan

Fill this in before the trial starts and keep it with the project record.