Episode #1 Database driven information management - Rob Jackson

Rob Jackson, Head of Information Management Services at RLB Digital.

Published 23 April 2024.

Watch Episode 1.

Two documents can contain the same passage and still disagree. Rob Jackson had seen that leave teams asking the client which version was correct. A database gives document authors one place to maintain that passage and reuse it wherever it is needed.

Executive summary

Shared text, linked code lists and reusable templates connect information that would otherwise be maintained in separate files. Plan authors can select values from one maintained list, while consultants can reuse prepared content across repeated commissions. Rob Jackson developed this approach through earlier experiments with digital resources and chose Morta to bring text, tables and contribution into one platform. His practical starting point was an existing process, with its relationships to other work considered from the outset. Wider exchange between systems and extensions into project and cost management were still ambitions when this interview was published in April 2024.

One maintained list behind the plan

A master information delivery plan depends on information held elsewhere. The plan author can select company and organisation codes, along with functional and spatial breakdown values, from a linked table. The author then works from one maintained list instead of recreating those values within the plan. A correction can be made to that shared list rather than reconciling separately maintained versions.

The same principle applies to text. When document authors reuse a passage from a shared source, they can maintain the wording there instead of editing each copy independently. That addresses the conflicting passages Rob had encountered and the clarification work they created for the client.

From digital documents to connected resources

An architect by training, Rob had spent several years working as an information management consultant. When he set up his previous consultancy in 2016, he wanted its services to reflect its digital identity. His first experiments explored a more accessible, website-like alternative to conventional documents. The technology was not mature enough for what he wanted, so he paused the work.

Later, work on an internal business system led to a collaborative tender response. The team collected, refined and presented its answers through a platform that also supported tabular information. Rob began considering how it could become an information hub for a project. Attempts to introduce it on a couple of projects did not get off the ground.

He placed his return to the idea around early 2019, after the release of ISO 19650. A quieter period gave him time to explore technology that could handle both conventional text and work usually done in Excel. He began developing information management resources that combined those types of content.

Relevant information with the process around it

A collection of PDFs and spreadsheets can be difficult to navigate unless someone already knows which document to open. Filtering shared information for a particular project party gives that person a view relevant to their work. They can use that view to find the information they need without first locating it among separate files.

An information management resource can also hold the process and guidance around the data. Text can sit alongside videos, embedded models and other content. The person using the resource has both the information and the supporting material needed to follow the process.

At the time of the interview, Morta already connected with common data environments. Rob wanted wider exchange with authoring and model-federation tools, using IFC as a data schema for passing information between systems. His ambition was to give project teams consistent, standardised information they could then present and analyse for clients across those tools.

Give client requirements an ongoing management process

The Department for Education's requirements were an example from Rob's earlier work. They had been written in conventional documents, and the technical advisers had a defined information management service to carry out. The advisers used those requirements to monitor the documents and data the project needed to supply. That gave the client an ongoing management process for the information it requested.

Looking back, Rob would have preferred to write the requirements in a database and generate the documents from it. The requirements author could then maintain the shared information while still producing the documentary outputs the client needed.

Rob had seen contractors invest in systems as the volume of information increased. Rechecking a list shortly after somebody updated it was the repeated work he wanted to reduce, leaving people more time to improve the process. His own interest lay particularly in data, but he emphasised that documents remained important.

Poor information also limits the answers obtained from artificial intelligence and machine learning. Rob treated the quality of the underlying information as a condition for getting useful responses from those technologies.

Reuse preparation across repeated commissions

Larger projects gave Rob more room to develop and refine processes within a fee. On smaller commissions, competitive fee pressure could make that investment harder to justify. Clients who understood the work could still choose to fund it, including through a separate initial cost.

His experience included repeated school projects. For a consultant preparing BIM execution plans across those commissions, templates avoid starting the same drafting from scratch each time. Team and software arrangements recur across projects, even when project values differ. Preparing reusable content lets the consultant apply that work again, which matters when a smaller fee leaves less time to develop the process anew.

The room in a larger fee was not all available for development. Rob's allowance also covered uncertainty over a long programme. He still considered the approach relevant to smaller jobs, while recognising that investing in a database could be challenging.

Information remains valuable alongside the physical building, including on smaller projects. Project size changes the commercial conditions for providing it. Reusing preparation across commissions helps the consultant respond to those conditions while continuing to provide the information management work.

Start with a process and consider its relationships

Low-code and no-code tools let people begin with familiar text and tables. Rob had learned some Python and regular expressions, but coding expertise was not his proposed starting point. An existing Word document or Excel template gives the person trying the tool a defined task and a purpose for using it.

That task needs to fit the wider work. Someone beginning with a master information delivery plan can consider the code lists and other information it depends on, as well as how the plan will be used. Connecting that first task to shared information gives the approach room to develop without requiring every function at the start.

Rob wanted to leave room for project management, project execution plans and cost management within the wider RLB business. He was considering how those functions could be added to the template later. He was not beginning by building them all.

Choose the platform around contribution and reuse

Rob's choice of Morta rested on practical requirements. He valued features in other tools and acknowledged that every platform had strengths and weaknesses. His priorities at the time were:

• Data location. His IT colleagues had asked where the data would be held. UK storage mattered to his team, while working globally would raise a different question.
• Text and tables together. He wanted the documentation and tabular parts of information management in one platform, allowing him to build resources that used both.
• Connections to construction systems. Connections relevant to construction supported his ambition to exchange information with the other tools used in the work.
• A reusable template. He could duplicate one template in Morta. Copying a setup assembled across several tools had been more tedious, even though he had not found it especially painful.
• People contributing through permissions. Contributors could enter the platform to update data. Rob wanted to support work such as COBie updates without introducing extra contribution costs or returning to Excel and CSV exchanges. Forms in other platforms could support some contributions, but did not answer every updating need he had identified.

Try the approach on an existing task

Rob had already used Morta to build his CV before joining RLB Digital. He was also considering moving fee proposals into it. A concrete document or template gave him something to work on, while wider uses could follow as he learned what the platform could do.

Watch the full Episode 1 interview.