Future-Ready: Mastering Projects for the Digital-Age Owner

STEPHEN BROOKE: Hello, and welcome to Future Ready, Mastering Projects for the Digital-Age Owner, Class BE3957. We're going to do some speaker introductions. I am Stephen Brooke, digital delivery manager at Burns & McDonnell. I graduated from the University of Central Missouri with a bachelor's degree in computer aided drafting and design. Currently work at Burns & McDonnell and some of the roles that I've served in my 18 years here as structural designer, a BIM/CAD manager, assistant project manager, VDC manager, and currently the digital delivery manager for our global facilities group and our life science and technology lane.

Some key achievements in my career, I was the 40 Under 40 Champion of Construction 2023 recipient. I was on the Digital Builder podcast episode 85, where we talked about the future of commercial space exploration. And then was also on the E&R podcast to talk about the reality of managing large data sets, point clouds, and best practices.

And I would say that I specialize in integrating BIM with cloud platforms like Autodesk Construction Cloud. And the motto that I use around the office is, driving innovation through technology and collaboration. I'm going to pass it over to my co-presenter, Nate Coombs.

NATHANIEL COOMBS: I should have presented first because it's kind of hard to follow that list of achievements. Also, you look way too young to have been in the field for 18 years. Well, welcome, everybody, to the digital experience of Autodesk University. My name is Nate. I am a senior business consultant at Autodesk. My focus is on construction and data and analytics.

I went to the University of Vermont, UVM for short. I got a bachelor's degree in Civil engineering, mostly focused on structures, but obviously, all the other facets as well. I've been with Autodesk for seven years, and that was through the acquisition of assemble. So if anyone is familiar with that product, it still holds a special place in my heart. But started my career there as a application engineer and found myself in the consulting role, working with Stephen as a customer and now good friend.

I'm based in New England. I guess I have to throw in an accolade after following Steve. I'm Person of the Year for 2020 and 2022 for my role at Autodesk. And yeah, sustainability is another one of my focuses. I always wish I could spend more time on that, but if you don't find me here, probably losing golf balls in the woods, taking pictures, traveling, something of that sort. So yeah, we can go to the next slide, Stephen.

So the agenda for today, obviously, we're here to talk about the digital owner and the future of how the industry is going to change as owners mature in their digital journeys. We're going to start by setting the stage. It's surely an evolving landscape when we look at project delivery nowadays, and we want to make sure we have some context for a lot of the stuff that we're going to be talking about throughout the presentation today.

We'll start with data and BIM maturity ideology, the two pillars that I think prop up the rest of the digital transformation lifecycle. We'll get into some of the challenges and opportunities that we're faced with when we're going through digital transformation. We'll talk about some of the strategic approaches that you can apply for modern owners. And we'll wrap ourselves up with the future of project data in BIM and how that shapes the future of project delivery.

So to set the stage here, I'll go back to a project that Stephen and I worked on for one of their-- Burns & Mac client's intuitive machines. They're a company focused on sending spacecraft to the moon and conquering that kind of transfer of goods and modernization of space travel. And as you can imagine, that was a pretty forward-looking company. And with that comes requirements on projects and technology use that we have to apply to make sure that we deliver the project correctly, but also, meet all of their requirements.

So as we set the stage here for today, we've learned a lot through that process. That was the Genesis of this presentation, as a whole is. It was a lot of work and we learned a lot of cool things throughout the process. So I want to give that start of evolving client requirements. They need more information. The good ones are going to start using their models and their data more and more.

You see this already in the tech companies and their projects, the things that they work on. They really are focused on the data. That data is facilitated by the adoption of cloud-based solutions. The rising of the use of cloud-based tools has gone crazy in the past few years, and it's not going to stop anywhere, anytime soon.

This sort of thing starts to lead us to want to promote these digital transformation with owners. We can charge more for our services. We can provide a better product at the end of the day, have a better relationship with them, and help them along the way, and help them help us. And I think this all gets started by focusing on BIM versus traditional 2D drafting.

So before I hand it over to my good pal, Stephen, here to get us rolling, I'm just a pretty face. He's the brains behind all this stuff. I'll bring you to a slide that you might have seen before if you had any presentation about data analytics at Autodesk has given you. Obviously, being a data analytics consultant myself, this is something that I'm faced with on a regular basis.

And some of these crazy stats, they still don't get old. I'm hoping this first one is a little bit better because I think these are a couple of years old, but 95.5% of all data goes unused during engineering construction. And at this day and age, that's crazy. Even if it's not good, you can still use your data. I know that more than 5% of it is good.

So 58% of owners said they use or plan to use design-build methodologies in their contracts versus traditional design bid build methods, and think this is a huge driver of just the industry in relationships and how we can better arrive at an end goal. And then although only 5% of the data is used, 81% of owner and operators want to dive in and drive these decisions through building data. And all this drives-- the numbers don't lie. Big analytics generally leads to an 8% increase in revenue.

So just something to think about. I imagine you have a couple of thoughts on this as well, Mr. Brooke.

STEPHEN BROOKE: Yeah. And Nate, you talked about it, clients, we are starting to see clients expecting more data-driven, integrated project delivery, especially in certain markets that we interface with. Data centers and our life science and pharma industries are starting to require that.

And more data allows for more connected projects and a need for seamless integration, and that goes through the entire life cycle of our projects from cradle to grave. And so unlocking the value of that project data is the key to success in this industry. And of course, to meet these demands and capitalize on the potential of data, we must mature our practices of data and embrace BIM and really focus on the I in BIM, which is information. And data and BIM maturity are essential for the future of project delivery, which leads me into data and BIM ideology. And to start, we're going to define what data maturity looks like.

And as we've seen, this industry is facing growing client demands and data complexity. To address these challenges, we have to focus on two key pillars-- data, maturity and BIM maturity. These concepts form the foundation of efficient, data-driven project delivery. Data maturity ensures that project data is used to its full potential and trying to prevent that 95.5% of unused data Nate mentioned earlier in the trends. It's not just about storing data, it's about creating the framework where data drives decision making.

So now, let's talk about BIM maturity. This takes us beyond traditional 2D drafting into a data-rich collaborative workflow that aligns with client expectations. And I know I've seen this image a handful of times over the last year or two, and you might have seen this as well. Where do you think you stack up on this? Do you feel like you're at Level 3?

I know for most of us here at Burns & McDonnell, I know we're kind of at the Level 2. And so as clients demand smarter or faster project delivery, BIM maturity is essential for delivering better results from inception of the project to handover.

So let's talk about the evolution of project delivery. Historically, project delivery relies on fragmented workflows. It's siloed information. I mean, we all can relate. We all are very compartmentalized and siloed, and that causes inefficiencies and miscommunication between teams.

Today, we're seeing a paradigm shift, where data is at the core of every decision, enabling a more connected, data-driven approach to project delivery. By centralizing the data and breaking down the silos, we enable real-time collaboration and more accurate decision making. Again, that 8% revenue that Nate was talking about, I mean, we can increase that ourselves for our companies and our organizations.

And BIM maturity is central to that transformation, as it allows data-rich models that serve as the foundation for project success. As we evolve, BIM maturity ensures that the information needed for decision making is embedded into every aspect of project delivery from design all the way to handover. And I'll keep reiterating that, cradle to grave.

The evolution of project delivery shows us that adopting advanced technologies like leveling up in the data, maturity and BIM maturity allows us to meet the demands of modern project owners and essentially, I mean, we know these concepts. We've been talking about them at AU over the last couple of years, especially as technology like Autodesk Construction Cloud has been coming out. But these concepts are no longer optional. They should be the driving force behind every successful project and almost turning us from being reactive to proactive.

So let's talk about transforming project delivery using integrated data-driven technologies. Tools like Revit, Civil 3D, and Navisworks are not just drafting tools anymore, but powerful platforms for building information modeling, or BIM. These tools enable the creation of highly detailed and accurate digital twins if you take them to the right level of details. Digital twins are now becoming more of a buzzword and more of a reality in this industry, and especially with owners, where they serve as the foundation for all of our project phases from design through construction, then to handover. And that's where our owners are wanting to have that better data-rich model to turn over for operational and functionality.

And the use of third-party tools ensures data integrity and compliance within the BIM environments. QA, QC, making sure that data is being governed and steward and maintaining consistency and reliability across the models and the data within those models, which can help prevent errors that can lead to costly rework.

Now, we all know-- I bet everybody, as you're listening to this, you can think of at least one time in your career where you had a costly mistake because we didn't get something coordinated. And by integrating these data-driven technologies like these BIM platforms and digital twin environments like Tandem, we ensure accuracy, consistency, and efficiency throughout the project life cycle.

These tools, not only transform how we manage projects today, but also, position us to meet the demands of the future. Why don't you kind of chime in on what you're thinking about that.

NATHANIEL COOMBS: Yeah. No, I mean, and if you can go to the next slide, I feel like it actually kind of leads in nicely, is those tools that we just had listed. When we talk about BIM, we talk about data. They're kind of one in same, in my mind. A 3D model and a BIM system are very, very different things.

And a lot of other processes that we want to facilitate along the digital journey, things like 5D scheduling or just planning, in general, are much better and easier to do when you have something in front of you to look at. I'm not going to say I coined the term, but I may as well have, a picture's worth a thousand words, and a model is at least 1,000 pictures, right.

So you get so much more context of what's actually happening in a space, and that enables a whole bunch of other processes to happen down the road. And this allows there to be less creep on scope. It allows better alignment across different disciplines. It allows for documentation creation to be done more quickly. That's probably what most of you are using, tools like Revit for today anyways.

And I guess the first thing I'll tell you is Revit is not intended just to create your 2D documents. It's intended to develop a data-rich model that can be used by every other person downstream and not only be used by every person downstream, but added to and continually up updated. And eventually, you end up with this intelligent system that an owner can use long term.

And like I said, we're talking about these ideas like they're things that are going to happen. They're already happening. And if you're not doing these things today, I would definitely say we should start thinking about them before owners force our hands and we're scrambling because we said we could do something that we might not be 100% sure about.

And that brings me to the next point, which is collaboration. I s how often is it that an issue on a project is because something was missed? Somebody didn't talk to somebody else. Somebody didn't see an email. They didn't know that something changed. They missed a notification, whatever it might be, 90% of the time, money lost on a project can rework, it's caused because someone didn't talk to one another. Or somebody didn't see information, the amount of information they were supposed to.

A lot of that time if you go back to the silos in the way that we've worked for years and years and years. And the cloud has changed all of that. I'll obviously, plug things like Autodesk Construction, by an ACC, because I'm wearing an Autodesk Construction Cloud jacket. But it's tools like that. I don't care which one you use.

I mean, obviously, I want you to use ours, but if you're using others, embracing the cloud is more important than which tool you use to do it. And facilitating project execution and particularly, the design process and collaboration throughout the design process is way more easily facilitated through the cloud than it ever has been before.

STEPHEN BROOKE: Yeah, and talking about the cloud-based environments, then it's transitioning into bridging to design and operation with digital twin technology. And the intent of digital twin tools is to bridge that gap and provide a comprehensive platform. Tandem is a great example of that.

Carries the project's data from inception through its life cycle for seamless transition and management, ensures that owners receive a living, breathing data set for ongoing operations and maintenance. And they want to shift from traditional, disjointed methods to a fully-integrated, data-driven approach. And for clients and owners, the goal is for them to improve project outcomes, but also get them operational faster.

I mean, I haven't met a client yet that says, I want to have the binder of closeout data anymore. It's all, let's have some digital kind of handovers in some regard. And in order for us to do that, we have to improve the quality of our models, the quality of the data, have to have it on time and within a budget. And that sets the stage for continuous improvement and innovation in project delivery.

Now, while digital twin technology provides enormous potential to improve project outcomes, the path to fully realizing these benefits is not without its challenge, and organizations have to navigate that resistance to change, tech fatigue, and the need for increased reliability. And as we move forward, let's talk about and explore how the adoption of these digital tools, such as digital twins, create both challenges and opportunities and understanding and addressing, these challenges will help us unlock even greater potential for innovation and growth.

So let's talk about navigating these challenges and the opportunities that can come from these challenges in digital transformation. So now, that we've established the importance of data and BIM maturity, it's important to recognize that achieving these ideas come with its own set of challenges. And these challenges aren't just obstacles, they're stepping stones that can lead us toward greater innovation, greater growth, and greater leadership.

And so in my experience, there are four major challenges that consistently stand in the way of successful digital transformation and data maturity. However, each of these challenges also present an opportunity for growth, efficiency, and better project outcomes. So let's talk about these four challenges.

First one, change is hard. We know this. We experience this. I think kind of expression of is the old guards in rule right now, and it's waiting for them to get out. But the opportunity to that is to drive growth and innovation and showing them how change can be beneficial.

The next challenge is tech fatigue, which the opportunity here is for us to have a chance to simplify and focus on impactful technologies. I mean, that was actually the panel that Nate and I were on last year was about tech fatigue. And we had a panel from a design architecture firm, a GC perspective, and then us at Burns & McDonnell as an EPC cradle-to-grave perspective about how tech fatigue is impacting us in each of our workplaces in our industries.

And then the next challenge is lack of forward thinking. We have to start inspiring a shift towards innovation and future readiness. And that's why you're here in this class. You're here to get motivated and find out what are the opportunities and how to grow from this and help the industry and utilizing technologies like Autodesk and ACC.

And the last challenge is the three 9's of reliability. If you haven't heard this one, I don't know what you've been doing, but the three 9's of reliability are the new standard for excellence and consistency. I mean, we all know it. We all experience it. We want our technology to work 99.9% of the time.

You might have even heard the expression 5 9's. It's the same thing. It's we need this technology to work, and it's gotta be reliable. And so over the next few slides, we're going to dive deeper into each of these challenges and more importantly, how we can turn them into opportunities for success.

And then we'll discuss specific opportunities that can help us overcome these obstacles and position ourselves and our projects at the forefront of digital transformation.

So let's begin with the first challenge-- change is hard-- and we'll explore why resistance to change is so common in this industry.

NATHANIEL COOMBS: Stephen, I've got a question for you, man.

STEPHEN BROOKE: Yeah.

NATHANIEL COOMBS: So as your consultant, I'm going to put you on the spot. Do you. Do I meet the three 9's of reliability?

STEPHEN BROOKE: I would say so, but not to kiss some booty here. And I would also say forward thinking as well, which is needed in a strategic partnership that the consulting services brings to Burns & McDonnell. But Nate, would you like to talk about the change is hard?

NATHANIEL COOMBS: Of course. So when Stephen and I were going through who wanted to talk to what, this one stuck out to me. As a consultant, this is probably my number one obstacle. I've worked with hundreds of different companies. I've worked with owners. I've worked with GCs, I've worked with design professionals, engineers, and everybody in between. And they all struggle with making large changes throughout their organization.

So much so that I have to get certified, and I had to take classes to learn how to do it. And it's still not that easy. People think they figured it out. everybody is different, though. And it embracing change and motivating people to change is a very, very important skill to make sure that you have on staff, and make sure that you have embedded into your practices for how your people work.

But that leads to a lot of opportunities. I mean, if you look at-- I don't know if everyone remembers the digitization index that McKinsey did a few years back that put construction only one step above agriculture in terms of their digital maturity. And all of that leads to a lot of opportunity.

Once you get past that first initial everyone being really mad that you change things up on them and they realize what's good for the bird is good for the herd, that will allow your organization to grow, innovate, embrace new tools, enhance project outcomes, and reduce honestly, improve just project success overall.

And honestly, you have to constantly be changing. Change is honestly not-- if you find yourself in the same spot for a very long time, that's usually not what the shareholders want to see. And this is really, it's funny, Stephen mentioned our panel last year around tech fatigue. That change in tech fatigue, I think, kind go hand in hand.

I work for a tech company that, I think, last time I checked, had over 100 different softwares. Just us. 100 different softwares, and I can hit you with 100 different acronyms for each one of them. And I know, for sure, that each organization has many.

I've had these exercises with Stephen. Burns & Mac, if you talk to different groups, there's at least 50 different softwares being used across different teams, across different groups. And at the same time, there's somebody calling Stephen every single day trying to sell him a new one.

And it's overwhelming. Which ones do we use? Some of them are worth taking the call. Some of them are worth checking out. Some of them are worth putting on a shelf maybe or getting an hour back in your day. But if you can, once again, understand and how to mitigate and simplify these processes for your people, you can give really clear guidance that helps mitigate some of this fatigue that we'll get into a little bit more as we get into the rest of the presentation here.

STEPHEN BROOKE: Yeah, so let's talk about lack of forward thinking in the industry. I mean, that's why we're having this conversation is, we all see it. Some people are slow to adopt. People prefer familiar methods and hesitate to explore new opportunities. And some of that also, comes from that tech fatigue and change-is-hard aspect. So some of these challenges-- well, actually, I think all of these challenges definitely blend together.

There's opportunities for forward thinking in this industry. And if you're sitting here listening to this presentation, you're interested in trying to push innovation forward. And we have to foster a culture of innovation, and we have to think beyond the status quo, and we have to drive the industry. And if that doesn't get you excited-- I mean, for me, it gets me excited, and I know it gets Nate excited. And we're all about trying to forward think, and we have to in this industry.

And then we talked about the three 9's of reliability. It's a high standard, requires meticulous planning, and it requires a bigger team. This is not something that you can do solo, and it requires precise execution and continuous monitoring to make sure that things are running smoothly.

And this brings in opportunities. If you can meet the three 9's of reliability, you can set yourself apart, you can set your firm apart. I mean, it could be a difference maker. And it's a commitment to excellence. It helps reduce risk. It's a robust data management and process optimization, and it enables us to have consistent performance, and ultimately, leads us to strategic approaches that can help align our organization with all of these evolving expectations and challenges.

So let's talk about that strategic approach. So as you've been listening so far, we've been addressing the four challenges-- change, resistance, tech fatigue, reliability. And really, that creates opportunities for us to position ourselves as leaders in this industry.

And this requires us to adopt and integrate innovative technologies. Modern project owners are looking for partners who can deliver more than just projects. They want innovative solutions that streamline processes and improve outcomes. That's why we are using consulting with Autodesk. But our owners are also-- and clients are starting to do the same thing.

We have to proactively manage that change and mitigate the tech fatigue because, again, owners are seeking partners who can navigate the technology challenges smoothly. So we have to position ourselves as trusted partners and proactively manage that change and ensure the right technologies are adopted in a way that doesn't overwhelm them.

And then we have to strive for the high standards of reliability and promote forward thinking and innovation and talk about the cost effectiveness of innovation, and can it provide benefit for us in our daily lives of what we do for our roles and tasks within the AE space.

So let's talk through a little bit of strategy and how it can be applied. Strategy, we have to prioritize the right technologies. What makes sense for your business plan. That's what I do when I select technologies. Nate is right. We have well over 50, if not hundreds of technologies, some are Autodesk and others with other vendors. And we have to prioritize the right technologies that fit within our business planning.

We have to focus on collaboration. I mean, we've been doing that for a long while now in this industry with clash detection and collaboration. But we really need to focus more on it and then talk about data, which we have to improve the data. And with that, allows us to have accurate forecasting of maybe project performance or how our teams are performing, how our subs are performing.

There's a lot of ramification if we're able to accurately forecast that stuff. And clients we're coming across, their speed to market is the phrase that's used. So how do we apply some of this strategy? Well, we utilize cloud tools-- ACC, Tandem, and many, many others.

Seamless flow of information. The data has to flow between not just our disciplines, but from cradle to grave through the handoff of our project controllers and our pre-con estimators to the folks that are in the field and then to our owners. The data has to be accessible, it has to be actionable, and it has to, obviously, meet client requirements. And overall, that data has to enhance project efficiency.

So let's talk about how we strive for the strategy for striving for the three 9's. High reliability. That's the strategy. We have to focus on data integrity, implement robust planning, and ensure continuous monitoring. We have to make sure that all of our systems are operational.

I mean, Nate mentioned, intuitive machines. They have to go to seven 9's of reliability to get to the moon and land on the moon. Application. You have to integrate quality control. You have to utilize predictive analytics. You have to align. All of your systems and methodologies have to align, and you have to meet the expectation of the modern owner.

And then you have to demonstrate that excellence and be dedicated to it. And then you have to differentiate your organization from the rest of the competitors in the market. So, Nate, would you mind talking about how to proactively manage change and mitigate the tech fatigue?

NATHANIEL COOMBS: Yeah. Like I said, this is something that I do a lot and I'm currently doing with Stephen and Burns & Mac as we speak. Because it's a constant thing that we work on. But the first thing I would tell everybody to do is Google the term ADKAR right now, not right now, but after you're done watching this. Google the word A-D-K-A-R, and just read whatever the first thing that comes up is about change management.

It's not a thing prolific, right, but it is a really good foundation for how the things that you need to do to manage change effectively and the thing that you need a culture to make sure that you have a successful strategy. You can't just say, hey, we're using a new tool, have fun, figure it out.

You need to have executive sponsorship. You need to have a pilot in place. You need to gather your case. You need to plead your case to these people. Because honestly, people have been building things successfully for-- how long has Burns & Mac been in business, Stephen? 150 years?

STEPHEN BROOKE: Over 110.

NATHANIEL COOMBS: 110. 110 years. They did it without technology. They do it without BIM. Things have been being built successfully for a very long time. So you could always get the response, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But you need to have a case and a reason to change, the case for change, to actually inspire people to open up their minds to possibilities.

And that kind of leads us to applications. You need to plan. That is half of my job is just planning how are we going to make this work without having everybody say, we don't want to do this. And even if you're lucky enough to have somebody telling them they have no choice, sometimes it's even harder, because then you get faced with resistance.

I can't tell you the number of times I've gotten slapped around in a meeting with a bunch of veterans in the AE space because I didn't have a good enough plan for how I was going to make sure that they didn't lose time. Because they have to stay utilized, they have to stay billable. And they don't always have a lot of time to learn new things or to spend a lot of time learning new things, I guess.

But also sometimes you need to take a full left turn and completely change the way you do things. But a lot of times, it's not a complete left turn. It's an oil change. It's a swap of the tires. It's a new paint job. And aligning what you've used to do is close as you possibly can what is going on in the future can, hopefully, enhance that disruption, that you're--

Disruption is a good thing, but you don't want to bog people down and cause them to spend more time than they need to just because of a new product. So planning is key, and making sure that you're aligning this with your existing workflows as much as possible so that you're not only changing products, you're aligning everything together.

And that leads us to this forward-thinking innovation. And this is where I feel like companies like Autodesk are responsible for leading the way. We develop a lot of tools. I would like to think we are a very, very forward looking organization. And promoting this across the board is a really just good practice.

And I'll hone in on that word culture. Culture is the key to change, hands down. Culture is the hardest thing to change, and company culture, it all starts with the organization. I can't tell you the number of times I've said something-- oh, 3D quantification is something I've spent a lot of time doing. And why would we need that? That's not really how we do things here. And in my mind, that's not a good reason to not think about what's possible or explore new opportunities.

So it falls on the responsibility of the front end of the adoption curve. You need to encourage a mindset, engage stakeholders, and focus on long-term benefits. And there's no better way to do that than leading by example. Like I said before, developing that case for change that showcases the outcomes and the value that you're providing to somebody by the extra two hours of training they have to take next week.

Getting ahead of your project needs. When is any owner ever been upset when you exceeded expectations? Usually, that's how you get repeat business, and that's how you get your next contract and you sell more services. And I always say this, and we'll get into this a little bit more as we talk more about data, but considering the future impact of what you're doing.

I always talk about think about the end in mind. Develop your process with the end in mind, because you don't want to get to the end and realize we didn't do what we needed to do, because we didn't consider something along the way. And obviously, the biggest elephant in the room, because obviously, digital delivery costs $1 billion. It's not expensive, but BIM, for no reason, is expensive. That's for sure.

But if you create BIM models with intent and you have a process in place that leverages data downstream, you're going to get ROI. And that's something that I would always implore people to evaluate. I'm lucky enough to also have spend some time in sales, and what's the point of getting something new just to spend the money? You have to always have to have an ROI to make sure you're protecting your investment and getting the most out of your people.

And that cost benefit analysis come in. Pilot programs are the way. Obviously, this is old news to many. But obviously, pilot something, pick a project, test new approaches, and ensure that there's something in it for everyone.

The D and ADKAR that I mentioned before stands for desire, and I've always thought that is, by far, the most important one of the letters of that process. If people don't have a desire to change, there's nothing in it for them, then it's really hard to get people to do something if there's nothing in it for them, and that shouldn't have to cost you extra money.

So as we shift from of strategies of what you can be doing, we want to look at what is the future of all of this look like. And the future is something that we should start prepping for today. I feel like I want to tie this a little bit back to the owners. We are lucky they haven't figured it out already, let's put it that way.

Because a lot of companies are trying their best, but I don't very many people at all that are truly prepared for a true digital twin. And I don't think we're that far away from owners starting to request those sorts of things. With the rise of sustainability, with the carbon tracking, with the rise of labor, materials, and costs, labor costs and material costs, you have to be prepared, and they're going to want to really keep things high and tight, particularly, as time goes on.

So we need to integrate, and things need to be interoperable. And that's one of the main pillars of, like I said, it's been a lot of time in ACC, Autodesk Construction Cloud. And once again, if you've ever gotten a presentation or a demonstration of that tool, I hope whoever gave you that said those two words, integration and interoperability, at least 10 times, because those are the two biggest things.

We realize that not all of your projects are going to be completely managed in our tools. We need to be ready to integrate with other systems. And we to be able to make sure that our data is able to be read by other systems. And we're reading other information from other systems, and it all lives in harmony with one another.

And data needs to be interoperable. It's already complex. There's already a lot of it. I'm lucky enough to have built a lot of Stephen's dashboards, and there's hundreds and hundreds of tables of data already, and that's just from ACC. That doesn't even bring in Revit models and other information from different systems.

And without thinking about integration, you can't eliminate silos, you can't enhance collaboration, you can't have data flow effortlessly, and you need to be prepared to do this. When we talk about thinking about developing your process with the end in mind, preparation is really what I'm thinking about.

Obviously, the first bullet, it goes without saying, investing in technology, but prioritizing data standards is the number one biggest thing we can do. If you don't do this, then the data is a mess on the back end. That's when it is a waste of time and money because you're cleaning up a mess that you could have solved in the beginning of the process.

But you need to encourage collaboration too. People need to be able to get in and out of data. And if the data is not shared with everybody, you're not getting the most out of the investment of which you create that data. If you're in any of at least Autodesk tools, you're already invested in that data, and you're creating it as you go. So obviously, all of that culminates in a digital twin. You can't have a digital twin without the data or the BIM system.

STEPHEN BROOKE: Yeah. And Nate, you're right. And I always love this title because I immediately think Star Wars. But the vision with digital twins is, this is going to evolve our industry standard. It's going to represent physical assets in the field on site. It's going to enable our owners and clients to have predictive maintenance and optimize performance with their facilities and enable them to have more informed decision makings.

And for us to prepare them for that, we have to start bringing up digital twin and enhancing data within our models. And we have to maintain them, and we have to educate our clients and used the essential tools to enable ongoing operations and future planning.

And then we start getting into enhanced predictive analytics and AI. When Andrew talked about it last year on the mainstage of Autodesk AI, ChatGPT is very common now. So we have to increase the use of these tools or at least the knowledge of them and start utilizing AI and spaces that make sense, but doesn't work without proper data stewardship.

And you have to optimize the resource allocation and hopefully, it will start improving your project outcomes. And to prepare for that, we have to integrate AI-driven analytics, use it in a high-value areas such as risk management, scheduling and cost estimating, and then train teams in AI and have an actionable strategy to implement AI.

So let's talk about elevating expectations of reliability. Again, trying to meet those three 9's. The clients expect reliability and performance. We should be expecting the same thing within our BIM models and the data maturity and should be higher demands for it and higher standards.

How do we prepare for that? Well, we have to continuously refine and improve our processes and our technologies, understand client expectations, maintain quality control, have a robust data management strategy, and be proactive on that strategy and maintain consistency.

So they briefly talk to us about the shift towards sustainable and resilient design because I know this is a topic you love to talk about.

NATHANIEL COOMBS: This hits a soft spot for me, for sure. And honestly, if I'm being my true tree hugger self here, this is the most important thing for me and why owners need to adopt these technologies. If you look at any of the metrics of our industry's impact on the environment, we're, by far, the largest culprit.

And without sustainable and resilient design, the world is headed towards a big old dumpster fire. And it all starts with data. You can't quantify carbon, if you don't have quantities, and you can't plan effectively. You can't do value engineering. A lot of this stuff is really, really challenging to do without the data and the BIM to back it up.

And thinking about these things during the design process along the way, an owner, they might be asking you for data, but hopefully, they're also asking you to build their buildings greener and better for the occupants inside. People think about sustainability as just about the environment and carbon capture. It's about the health and well-being of the occupants as well. And integrating those ideologies into your design and insights and minimizing impacts lead to a sustainable product delivery.

And honestly, people think it's expensive. If you plan it the right way and collaborate along the way, there's very minimal impact, particularly, in the long term as you're building operates much more effectively. And that leads me to one of our final gaps here before we land this plane, is empowering this process, all the things that we're talking about through education and collaboration.

Collaboration is-- I think I already said it once here-- the biggest cause of problems on a project. I don't care if it's in your organization or with a contractor in their sub or the owner. Most of the time, something goes wrong is because somebody didn't tell somebody else what they needed to hear.

And widening or investing in education and fostering a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing is a really easy place to start. Telling your people to be free to give new ideas, to give them the resources and time that they need to learn and gather new skills.

Give them the opportunities to take a class. Invest in their ongoing training and education, and make sure they have access to the latest technologies. Don't shut them down just because-- oh, we have a process for doing that. We can't change. If they want to invest their time and they're still getting the rest of their work done, let them do what they need to do to make your business better. And driving innovation through shared knowledge and collective expertise is, obviously, the baseline of all of this.

So as we wrap this up here, Stephen, I'll hand it over to you to close us out.

STEPHEN BROOKE: Awesome, Nate. Appreciate that. So yeah, let's talk about the shaping the future of project delivery. Sorry, I'm a Kansas City guy, and obviously, Taylor Swift is pretty big right now. So I would say as an industry, we're in our project delivery era.

We've gone through the challenges-- change is hard, tech fatigue, lack of forward thinking, higher reliability. But we have unparalleled opportunities for growth, innovation, and leadership. And the shift in project delivery starts with advanced BIM platforms, integration tools such as ACC, digital twins, and fundamental shift towards a better inception to completion.

And the strategic approach to that success, if you have a strategic approach, you're going to have success. You have to foster innovation. You have to invest in learning. You have to have high standards of reliability and performance, and you want to position yourself or your firm or your group as a leader.