InfoTown™
Tom's journey · Pre-Construction · Lesson 1

Should we even bid?

Before you start

In the story

Three weeks into the bid, someone read the information requirements. They'd been there since Friday.

Back to the story

The right way

Friday

Sam has read the information requirements in two days: one new system, one new format. At go or no-go they get their own line, with Sam in the room.

The decision

Go, with a cost and a plan for the new system, or no-go now, while it's cheap.

Go

The bid prices it properly. Tom still has a deadline tomorrow, but not a surprise.

"Standard stuff, probably"Requirements read in week three, and a bid priced with a guess.
Read before FridayA real decision, a real price, and no surprises in week three.
Think like Tom

Before you commit to a bid, ask what the client needs from us in information, and whether we can do it. If nobody can answer, the go or no-go isn't ready.

Continue Tom's journey

Story 2: The plug number

Information management is priced as a percentage somebody used last time. It's half what the job needs.
The right way, explained

The right way, explained

Before the town agrees to build a new street, someone reads the whole order. Including the bit asking for a tram line.

If you're the information manager

If you're the information manager

Ask to be at the go or no-go meeting, and read the information requirements before it, not after. Two days' reading can save four weeks of bidding.

In the town See it in the town: three weeks in, someone read the requirements. When should they have?

Tom's view: Client Town's order, read on day one, before anyone promises to deliver it.

Show:
The need, travelling from the client to the design team and the site team On the left, the Client Town asks "What are we building?". The need travels to the project site. From there it splits: up to the Design System, where Alex plans 40 drawings and starts designing in the work-in-progress room, and down to the site cabin, where Dave lists detail drawings, RFIs and inspections to prove the work is right. CLIENT TOWN "What are we building?" THE NEED PROJECT SITE PROJECT CDE DESIGN SYSTEM WORK IN PROGRESS WE NEED: ☐ 40 drawings☐ 3 models☐ 1 design report Who · by when "OK, we need 40 drawings. Let's plan it." SITE CABIN WE NEED: ☐ 6 detail drawings☐ RFIs for any issues☐ 9 inspections to prove it's right "Details, RFIs and inspections to prove it."
The need, turned into a plan. Who makes what, and by when.

These are the client's information requirements, read before we commit!

What the client needs from us, read early enough to decide whether to bid at all.

Sam's Heads Up Some go or no-go meetings are a phone call

InfoTown good practice: The information requirements are part of the decision to bid.

On your job: A small bid may have no meeting at all. Then it's one question to me: "Anything in here we can't do?"

For the audit What the auditor will ask
  • Show me how the information requirements were considered in the decision to bid.
  • Who assessed them, and when?
For the audit What good evidence looks like
  • Go or no-go records that include the information requirements.
  • The information manager's assessment, dated before the decision.
From the standard
ISO 19650 Reading the requirements

ISO 19650 expects bidders to assess the client's information requirements and say in their tender how they'll meet them. Doing it before deciding to bid is InfoTown's advice.

Based on the ISO 19650 series: the ideas come from the standard; the plain-English wording, examples and advice are InfoTown's. ISO 19650 is © 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.