Win the workWin the work: Tender · day one…
Four days
Tom drops the pack on the table and asks for the BIM bit. Sam asks for four days, and reads the whole pack with a highlighter.
Stage 2 · Win the work · Stop 2 of 11 · The right way
The client's wish list
The back alley's bill so far: 18 weeks · See the bill
The right way
One list
Every requirement goes into one list, wherever it was hiding. Page twelve, in the maintenance appendix, goes on the list and into the price. Three questions go back.
In useIn use: Handover, a year later…
Page twelve, delivered
The asset data was in every supplier's order. It arrived with each escalator. Wes ticks it off in an afternoon.
The BIM bitThirty pages answered, one appendix ignored, six weeks at handover.
The whole packOne list, three questions, page twelve priced and delivered.
Now there is: The client's order, pulled into one list (the exchange information requirements), with three questions back to the client.
What's going on here
The client's order is rarely one tidy section. What the owner needs at handover, how secure things must be, and how the old Precinct's records are shared often sit in appendices and schedules. Pulling every requirement into one list is how a bid team finds out what it's really pricing, and questions back to the client are cheap now and expensive later.
New at this stop
- BIM
- Short for building information modelling: making and sharing structured information about what's being built. Tenders often give it a section of its own, which is a trap: the information requirements are rarely all in one place.
In the town See it in the town: where is the order hiding?
In the bid room, the order isn't one neat chapter. Part of it sits under BIM, part in a maintenance appendix, part in the schedules: page twelve, where Grace set out the data the owner runs on, is the bit most likely to be missed. Pulling every piece into one list, with three questions sent back to Client Town, is how the bid prices the whole order and not just the section with the right heading.
Fix it Only answered the BIM bit? Read the rest of the pack.
- Search every appendix and schedule for anything asking for information.
- Put every requirement found into one list, with its page number.
- Send the client your questions now, while answers are still cheap.
A note for the information manager: The requirement that hurts at handover is usually the one in the appendix nobody thought was about information.
Try it on your job
Open the last tender you worked on. Was there one list of the information requirements, or did everyone assume someone else had one?
ISO 19650 From a heap of pages to one list
| ISO 19650 says | Means | In the town |
|---|---|---|
| Exchange information requirements (EIR) | Everything the client asks the delivery team to provide, wherever in the tender it appears | The order, pulled together into one list |
| Asset information requirements (AIR) | What the client needs about each asset to operate and maintain it | Page twelve: the data the owner runs on |
| Building information modelling (BIM) | Using a shared digital representation of what's being built to support design, construction and operation decisions | The section with BIM in the heading, which is only part of the order |
| Security-minded approach | Treating sensitive information about a built asset so that it's shared only as far as it's safe to | The security pages, sitting in another appendix of the pack |
Based on the ISO 19650 series: the ideas come from the standard; the plain-English wording, examples and advice are InfoTown's. ISO 19650 and its UK National Annex are © ISO and BSI. You'll hear the same language across the industry. Read more for free in the Information Management Initiative (IMI) Framework guidance from BSI and nima. For the full requirements, use the standard itself.