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Tag Archives: ALIM

Did Bentley just ship Records Management for ProjectWise?

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Al 4 Comments

With the announcement that Bentley’s latest release of eB Insight (That’s SELECTSeries 3) brought Department of Defense 5015.02 Records Management certification, one might ask when will Bentley get around to certifying ProjectWise for records management? Well the answer is both “never” and “just did”.

ProjectWise is aimed at work in progress, collaborative design workflows and the processes managed there do spinoff documents that are deliverables and/or a legal record. So let’s look at the definition of Records Management per Wikipedia:

In the past, ‘records management’ was sometimes used to refer only to the management of records which were no longer in everyday use but still needed to be kept – ‘semi-current’ or ‘inactive’ records, often stored in basements or offsite. More modern usage tends to refer to the entire ‘lifecycle‘ of records – from the point of creation right through until their eventual disposal.

<…>

It should be noted that the format and media of records is generally irrelevant for the purposes of records management. The ISO considers management of both physical and electronic records.[3] Also, section DL1.105 of the United States Department of Defense standard DoD 5015.02-STD (2007) defines Records Management as “[t]he planning, controlling, directing, organizing, training, promoting, and other managerial activities involving the life cycle of information, including creation, maintenance (use, storage, retrieval), and disposal, regardless of media.”[4]

The issue for the work-in-progress EIM system is that a “document” may be representing a single file or many. Those files, and their various versions may have interdependencies with other files/documents. So, typically, when multiple files are overlaid together to represent something that’s perceived as a single drawing, then the complex engineering content is typically distilled down to a single, ubiquitous file such as a PDF so it can be used and managed downstream.

Well…ProjectWise does that part (PDF creation) very well through both ad hoc and scheduled jobs. So why not just add records management functions to ProjectWise? As we’ve seen in the above definition, there are concepts in records management that just aren’t applicable for design collaboration. So I’m advocating that the work-in-progress system process the design information into a form that can constitute a legal record, then that record should be pushed or pulled in the RM system.

Bentley does this via a connector between ProjectWise and eB Insight, the latter of which now has DoD 5015.02 records management certification. Ah…but now there are two information management systems, and you’re thinking there’s a problem with that. Not in my view…we’re talking about two VERY different functions that are performed by different people/departments for a reason. So it’s only sensible that each department would want to use the tool that best meets the needs of the job. With this approach they can. (You’ll find in other posts here that I’m not a believer in the “mother of all databases/systems”, but prefer a “horses for courses” approach for this reason)

Don’t be fooled by the fact that eB Insight is frequently referenced as part of the “AssetWise” brand and doesn’t have “ProjectWise” in its name. The pair work well together and you’ll find them paired this way in the field.

The NET?…the way I see it, Bentley just shipped a DoD 5015.02 certified add-on to ProjectWise.

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Don’t celebrate too early

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Al Leave a comment

In past posts I’ve written about how the implementation of a new ALIM system brings change in systems (tech), processes and people, and that change management in all three areas is crucial to a successful implementation.

Thankfully, I find that many organizations assume that change management is necessary, especially when a large number of people will be affected by the project. But I’ve seen too many cases where good attempts to predict the challenges and manage the change were made, only to have projects stall weeks or months after some early success.  Some indicators are: far fewer people using the system than expected after it’s been in production for “months”. Or…while trying to expand the use of the system, every  department/project lead questions the value when you try to implement for his/her org/project.

Many times it appears to me that most, if not all, of the change management activities are front end loaded in the implementation project…which can lead the project’s leads to assume that change management is “done”. Be careful not to be lulled to sleep by early progress, and be sure to have a good change management plan for the duration of the project.

See the warning below from Dan Cohen’s book The Heart of Change.

“However, it is essential to recognize the dangers that can follow short-term successes, and to realize that the change process can still fail to take root.  It is not unusual for leaders to lose focus at this point, to celebrate prematurely and relax rather than redouble their efforts.  Thus, the challenge for leaders is…to continue conveying their drive and commitment to employees and managers in order to sustain action through full implementation of the change…”

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People, Process, Technology…where do most of the ALIM implementation challenges come from?

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Al 2 Comments

Implementing an ALIM system brings change that impacts people, process and technology. It’s understandable that technology vendors represent their products as THE solution to all of you’re problems. I’ve seen a lot of awesome demos and it’s easy to get excited about the possibilities that today’s software tools bring.

But most will ignore the challenges in getting to the benefits the software can provide. That’s understandable right? No vendor wants a prospective customer getting nervous about the implementation challenges, so it’s not in their best interest to bring this up in the sales process.

Full disclosure/reminder…I’m a VP at Bentley Systems, Inc.

But another thing that vendors have in common is that they want their software to be used. You might assume that they’re only really interested in the sale, but they know that “shelfware” is a very bad thing. Especially today as the software business is moving rapidly to a subscription model. Years ago…ALIM system cost was very front loaded. So if a system didn’t “take” the vendor would miss out on some recurring maintenance / support revenue, but they’d banked most of the revenue from the relationship on the front end.

Not so much today…and moving quickly to a low-cost of entry and a consumption pricing model that spreads the bulk of the revenue from the relationship over a much longer time horizon. Subscription models have been around for a while, but you can thank the Cloud / SaaS for the recent acceleration that’s occurred in the past couple of years.

So it’s become even more important to vendors that the system be successful both in capability and be widely adoption. If you’re working with a vendor that’s selling a subscription, but isn’t talking about change issues…they don’t get it. And I’d question their long-term viability if they don’t begin to demonstrate quickly that they want to assist with your success by helping you overcome what might be your own internal issues.

So the question…

 

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“Cloud computing” as the dominant model in EIM?

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Al Leave a comment

About two years ago I attended a conference in Silicon Valley where Matt Porta from IBM was introduced as “The smartest man in the world.” I recall that Matt has ~ 500 scientists in his organization and one of his roles is to predict industry trends. During a panel discussion he was asked, “Where will cloud computing be as a model in five years?” Matt answered, “In five years, cloud computing will be the dominant model.” When asked, “On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the most disruptive), how disruptive will that be?” Matt answered, “It’s a 10.”

But what are your thoughts about the impact of cloud computing in EIM?…

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Vice President Professional Services Bentley Systems, Inc.

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