Tonight I get to go home at regular time. We are moving about 150 people into a new building from our old digs. We have been planning this move for quite a while and things went very much according to plan (whew).
The move was staged so that we could move our servers, desktops, infrastructure and all in one weekend. 21 machines and 8 UPS’s. This collection included an Exchange server, data servers, SQL servers, print servers, FTP server, Web server, NAS, Riverbeds, Polycom MGC, DNS, DHCP, Barracuda, license servers and more.
It was exhausting, but we were able to achieve the move and have things ready for a 7:00 am return of the workers this morning. I am finally getting some breathing room and can post on the blog.
One glitch that did show up was our Xerox 8830 plotter (yeah – it’s old. We are replacing it soon) blew a power supply, so we cannot plot. The ETA for replacement is two days.
I will be posting this week on what and how we did some of the planning and prep.
I mentioned that Ethereal CAD is an environment that is all talk and no action. This means that it would have a woefully under developed CAD Standard, if it had one at all. The CAD Standard would leave out critical items like file naming, folder structure, layer names, etc. By doing this it ends up to have everyone doing what they think is right, but none of them are actually coordinated.
Ethereal CAD is where talk of being standardized is not really followed up with reality. When you look at one project compared to another, they do not match. In the worst case files do not match other files.
What makes this different from Chaotic CAD is that everyone thinks they are standardized. They talk about it and everyone works hard at doing it, but they work with blinders on and focus only on the job at hand. They fail to take a long range look at what is needed.
One definition states that Ethereal is “Characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; intangible.” This hits right on target at what I am saying. CAD files do not easily display a standard. When you open multiple files they each say something different, something intangible. You cannot figure out what the standard is because it is not obvious from the files or the Standards docs.
Chaotic CAD is similar but differs based on the desire to standardize. Chaotic CAD does not have a standard, nor does it think it does, nor does it desire to have one.
Despot CAD is the opposite of Ethereal CAD. It has an authoritarian CAD Standard (and possibly leadership) that locks down everything in site. No flex. No creative juices. No experimenting on the side.
Ethereal CAD is tough to fix – but at least people care
Chaotic CAD is tougher to fix – cause no one cares
Despot CAD is toughest to fix – because it is usually driven by the culture of the firm.
People are harder to change than standards.
National BIM Standard Version 1, Part 1 is out for Industry Review
HOT OFF THE WIRE… Here is a portion of the press release. Take a look…
Washington, DC
Despot CAD is when the Standards are in place but no one knows why they are what they are.
A Despot is:
- A ruler with absolute power.
- A person who wields power oppressively; a tyrant.
This kind of environment usually appears to be run by a person who is viewed as “running a tight ship”. It may appear to be a well oiled machine, but the users are not having a good time at work.
Despot CAD is an environment that is oppressive and users are restricted in their use of the tool. The Standard is held a little too high and not flexible. People feel stifled. They are afraid to ask questions and equally afraid of getting it wrong.
By not passing on the “Why” of the standard the users often fail to understand the reasons for what they are doing. When this happens one answer is to just enforce the rules even harder. What this does is encourage people to break the rules (because they think they are dumb) and come up with their own guidelines with other users and just not tell anyone.
It is a cycle that slowly starts and appears over time. Make sure you are passing on the Why as well as the What.
Ethereal CAD is an environment that is all talk and no action. It is a place where everyone wants to have standards but no one wants to follow them. It is a system that is too theoretical because everyone has a good idea and none of them match. Files are created, named and stored all over the map. No one is using the same CTB or STB files.
It appears to be every man for himself, yet there is a thread of desire to get on the same page. There is just no follow through on making it happen. The Principles are there, but there is no standards. Everyone talks of standardizing but no one is ready to give up what they are doing to get on the same page with everyone else.
Do you have hints of this?
Chaotic CAD is where everyone does what they darn well please. No one talks to each other. No one cares about developing Standards. In fact they may actually think that standards get in the way of productivity or creativity.
In Chaotic CAD everyone is left to make the best of each file or each project. Nothing is refined. Everything is done as if it were the first time. No lessons learned. No improvement by unification, either in process or practice.
It may appear to be getting the job done because the files do get plotted correctly, but the heartache continues to the next project because nothing is put in place to develop best practices. Individual users may get better, but when they share files the chaos begins.
In a shared environment the goal is to unify. The issue is not who is right and who is wrong. It may be that they are just doing it differently. But the difference can mean frustration, lost time and major headaches.
Is your environment chaotic?
I am leaving on March 7 for the AIA Large Firm Round Table for CIO’s. We are meeting in Kansas City, MO.
I may not be able to post much, but look forward to meeting and talking with my fellow Tech Leaders.
Some things on the agenda include:
Architect – Contractor interoperability
Best Practices in Information Management
Data Management
Knowledge Management
Protection of Corporate Assets
Sphere of Influence
Staffing and Retention of IT staff
How do you PDF?
More and more I hear of people creating, exchanging, marking up and distributing PDF files to assist in the project flow of communication.
Are you creating PDF files?
What tool do you use?
Take the quick survey today and let others know what you are doing. If you are using a tool that is not listed, leave a comment here on what tool you use and why you like it. Feel free to comment on the tools that are listed also. Let’s all share our stories!
Failure to pass on the Principles of your CAD Standard to those who join your team will eventually cause your environment to fall apart.
You begin by defining your principles and share them with others. As you begin to create your CAD Standard everyone is on board. They all agree with the general concepts that are driving the standards development. Once you are done you celebrate and begin to move into maintenance mode.
This is when it becomes critical to pass on the principles of CAD that got you to this point. Pass it on to those who were not part of the team that created the standard. It will insure that you do not start declining (like the image above). Failing to pass it on will cause your users to begin to drift away from compliance because they just don’t understand why they should be using the standard. Eventually if you do not stop this trend, they will abandon the standard altogether.
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