Embracing BIM will require profound changes in the way Architects and Engineers work at almost every level within design. BIM not only requires learning new software, but also requires learning how to reinvent work flow, staffing and design responsibilities.  This shift in the design process allows us to rethink many of the common methods and perspectives we have today about how we get design out the Architects mind and into the built environment.

The National Building Information Model Standard Project Committee defines BIM as:

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. A BIM is a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable basis for decisions during its life-cycle; defined as existing from earliest conception to demolition.

A basic premise of BIM is collaboration by different stakeholders at different phases of the life cycle of a facility to insert, extract, update or modify information in the BIM to support and reflect the roles of that stakeholder.

As a practical matter, BIM represents many things depending on one's perspective:

• Applied to a project, BIM represents Information management—data contributed to and shared by all project participants. The right information to the right person at the right time.
• To project participants, BIM represents an interoperable process for project delivery—defining how individual teams work and how many teams work together to conceive, design, build & operate a facility.
• To the design team, BIM represents integrated design—leveraging technology solutions, encouraging creativity, providing more feedback, empowering a team.

Many discussion of BIM also include a reference to integrated practice as it relates to the design team. 

 According to Norman Strong, FAIA the definition of integrated practice is as follows:

Integrated practice is a new vision for practice that will support and engage architects as designers, while expanding the value they can provide throughout the project lifecycle.

At the core of an integrated practice are fully collaborative, highly integrated, and productive teams composed of all project life-cycle stakeholders. Leveraging early the contributions of individual expertise, these teams will be guided by principles of true collaboration, open information sharing, team success tied to project success, shared risk and reward, value-based decision making, and utilization of full technological capabilities and support. The outcome will be the opportunity to design, build, and operate as efficiently as possible.

I like to think of integrated practice as Design Build with the Architect at the center.