Bim's impact on the project manager

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been drawing increasing attention since the announcement by the UK government in 2010 that BIM will become compulsory for all major centrally procured government construction projects by 2016. Not only is BIM an innovative design tool, it may fundamentally change the way how a construction project will be procured, constructed, managed and maintained. This paper examines the new challenges faced by project managers who play a central role in a construction project and the inevitable adaptations needed to work in a BIM environment. Based on an extensive literature review, semi-structured interviews were conducted with project managers who have had BIM project experience. This research found that although it has indeed started to impact on the construction industry as a whole and on the projects themselves, BIM’s impact on the project manager and the project performance is actually far less substantial than expected. BIM is still at a relatively early stage of development in the UK and even though it represents a new way of undertaking a project, it is not necessarily changing the way a project is currently managed. In addition, BIM is advancing very fast and yet few companies have directly and fully supported the project managers and none was found to have updated the governance and/or project management process. Furthermore, many of the project managers simply are underprepared and not exploiting BIM to anywhere near its full potential, which is leading to missed opportunities. It is recommended that the industry needs to learn to embrace the full potential of BIM across all project team members. The resistance to change should be identified and managed more effectively to achieve a successful BIM implementation.