Big Team, Small Team—Differences in BIM Management Between Large and Small Firms

Small firms constitute almost exactly half of the fields of architecture. It’s always great to hear about all of the amazing scripts and tools that our peers from large firms are able to show off at conferences, but smaller firms often don’t have the depth of support staff (or the overhead hours) to dedicate to custom tools and add-ins, or even a support queue. Let’s talk about how the work of a BIM manager and technical support staff is different when we’re in a small firm. Not only are different tools needed, but also different workflows shine at different scales. Let’s talk about what works well in smaller offices, and what doesn’t translate down from larger practices. This class will be a lightly moderated discussion trying to find some consensus (or at least good debate) on how smaller firms function in the time of big data BIM. This roundtable was kicked off earlier this year at Midwest University. Takeaways from that discussion will be used as a jumping-off point.