May 2012
1 post
I've moved.
I’ve recently developed my online presence. These days, I’m here:
drderekthomson.com
Come over for more of this sort of thing, links to my academic writing and background on some of my funded work.
Thanks your readership so far - it’s been fun. Let’s see where this thing takes us…
April 2012
1 post
March 2012
1 post
February 2012
2 posts
An opportunity for a funded PhD
An opportunity exists for UK or EU nationals to compete for a funded PhD Scholarship in the School of Civil and Building Engineering at Loughborough University.
If you are at all interested in studying issues of stakeholder engagement, value, and/or the quantification of intangibles in a construction or built environment context, then please get in touch as soon as possible:...
The point of coursework
A well designed coursework exercise should act as a framework to stimulate and direct the student’s independent study. It should reward them for discovering things and forming connections not laid out to them by their tutor. Indeed, at higher levels of study the student is fully expected to counter the tutor’s position.
Yet, having just wrapped up the latest batch of coursework...
January 2012
2 posts
A new paper, forthcoming in CM&E
This is one of the papers to come from the HaCIRIC-funded Benefits Quantification work I was doing just before coming to Loughborough. Really pleased to see it accepted by a good journal. Some of the reviewer comments were the best I’ve ever had!
The Use of Freelisting to Elicit Stakeholder Understanding of the Benefits Sought from Healthcare Buildings
Thomson, Kaka, Pronk and Alalouch
...
December 2011
1 post
October 2011
2 posts
September 2011
1 post
Communication complexity!
So, just how complicated is a construction project?
Answer - About this much:
This is a social network elicited from email communications between the client’s project manager on an average, moderately-sized project (c. £20m; no particular design or process issues). It was produced by a student with an EPSRC summer bursary who’s been working for myself and colleagues for the last...
August 2011
2 posts
The McNamara Fallacy
The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes.
The second step is to disregard that which can’t be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading.
The third step is to presume that what can’t be measured isn’t important. This is blindness.
The fourth step is to say that what can’t easily be measured...
Interesting times
I had a great time this weekend working with past colleagues (you know who you are…) pulling together ideas on the possible form of collaborative funding.
It seems that a seismic change is coming. With new modes of building use that people just won’t understand. Tension between tradition and innovation is becoming tangible. Interesting times indeed.
June 2011
2 posts
What is BIM? a.k.a. 10 things BIM is not.
With the mandating of BIM on every public sector project, rather than just those of cost greater than £50m, this debate is timely. While I agree with their position that “BIM” is really just a collection of useful tools that address the spatiality of buildings, I did get lost on the more technical stuff.
Buried in the discussion (for the TL;DR’ers out there…), this gem is...
Problem based learning works!
So, over the past few weeks I’ve been simulating some value management workshops for our final year students. Based on the level of engagement, positive attitude, and genuine emails of thanks recevied, I think we can say that it went well.
Here they are in action (the photos are by the students themselves):
Group A, compiling a FAST Diagram:
Group B, organising an affinity diagram:
...
April 2011
1 post
They're back.
Remember this fantastic video laying down the principles of the Keynesian (the predominant model currently informing policy) and the Austrian School of Economics?
They’re back with another exposition of the thinking. Sadly not as detailed this time and with too much focus on Keynes, but still *well* worth ten minutes of anyone’s time:
March 2011
1 post
Our PhD students, working hard.
Well, at least they have a good community going. I would have killed for that when I was doing my PhD. That, and the quality of the space they enjoy.
Oh yes, I’m working for Loughborough University these days! :)
January 2011
1 post
The diffusion of students...
I finally managed to get the time to produce this network:
It represents the social network of undergraduate students in the “third year” of their studies. However, those highlighted in red are students who have joined the programme directly in that year having either prior education or appropriate industry experience.
They’re obviously quite isolated, but this is to be...
November 2010
1 post
Building: the verb
There’s a great article in today’s Observer which really captures what it feels like to participate in the process of building:
Out of an urban backwater, the 2012 Olympic dream takes shape
The seduction of construction is a powerful thing. It is the way that the sheer fact of building, the churning of mud and materials into frames and buildings, and the choreography of workers...
October 2010
3 posts
I've spawned.
So yesterday one my PhD students passed his viva with flying colours.
I’m not sure that the perfect thesis ever gets submitted, so he has some grammatical corrections and a few explanatory paragraphs to add here and there but - overall - it went as well as could ever be hoped for! The examiners had no problem with logic of the study or the manner of its defence.
It feels great when...
On the dangers of pattern languages
I finalised these words today. Quite pleased with them:
Researchers are attempting to determine if the patterns in these design manuals are true representations of stakeholders’ genuine aspirations or if they have been adopted by stakeholders as convenient pseudo-aspirations in the absence of means of expressing their collective cognition of value. Such study is timely as the private sector is...
Quantifying the Benefits of Healthcare...
I recently presented an interpretation of some recent NHSScotland capital project business cases to the 2010 HaCIRIC Conference. The paper was produced by my Benefits Quantification project and went down really well with most of the delegates.
Here’s the presentation:
HaCIRIC Conference Presentation
And the paper’s abstract:
QUANTIFYING THE BENEFITS OF HEALTHCARE...
August 2010
6 posts
"A Pilot Study of Client Complexity, Emergent...
Just accepted for Construction Management and Economics. Sole-authored, too!
Abstract
Construction industry reliance on performance metrics fixed at the project outset is being superseded by increasing use of emergent client judgements to characterise success. Clients may still consider a project that fails to meet formalised time, cost and performance goals successful if it satisfies emergent...
Death of a carpark.
It’s a good job my cognitive apparatus is situated deep within my foundations.
says the brutalist car park famous for its role in (the original) Get Carter movie as it tweets its own tortuous demise while it is slowly demolished bit by bit. All to make way for…
…yet another Tescos.
http://twitter.com/trinitycarpark
http://www.flickr.com/groups/gatesheadcarpark/
NEC3 ECC clause 11.2(3)
Clause 11.2(3) of the NEC3 Engineering and Construction Contract reads:
The completion date is the completion date unless later changed in accordance with this contract.
Or if typed correctly:
The Completion Date is the completion date unless later changed in accordance with this contract.
The capitals and italics mean something. Wonderful. Tonight’s debate: do I tell my students...
The Shard →
A really interesting article on some of the technical challenges faced when constructing the basement of the Shard. Amazing building. Even more amazing is the fact that they are currently only a couple of weeks behind programme.
Makes me wish I was back in the industry…
RIBA survey says double-dip recession is 'almost...
Things still aren’t looking good out there…
The number of practices expecting workload to decrease rose again by 3% (28% predicting a decrease in July, compared to 25% in June). There continues to be little evidence of a recovery in employment prospects for salaried architects, with 16% of architects expecting a decrease in staff numbers; a one per cent rise on the 15% figure in...
July 2010
4 posts
What BP could have bought...
… with the value of their lost market capitalisation caused by the Gulf oil spill.
I do rather like these things. Puts everything in perspective.
Source: http://www.visualeconomics.com/what-bp-could-have-bought-with-all-the-money-they-lost/
Two-year degrees coming?
The specter of the two-year degree has raised it head again. With many institutions now (officially or otherwise) already running three semesters (i.e. teaching all year round), then implementing such a thing actually won’t be that difficult.
But what would it mean for Scottish institutions? Would four years become three? And for the academics whose summers are already crammed full with...
Quantifying the Benefits of Healthcare...
Here’s the Abstract for a paper recently accepted to the HaCIRIC 2010 conference. It establishes the premise for my Benefits Quantification project. Basically, although there’s lots of guidance out there asking healthcare investors to assess and demonstrate the “benefits” realised by their efforts, this is seldom done. When it is done, it is done poorly.
Hence the need...
May 2010
2 posts
"The School that Mum Built"
I ran an initial “whole life value” workshop for this project a few weeks ago. Used all the standard Value Management tools, and a few new ones, to explore the priorities and issues framing the delivery of this school; with its new form of governance.
Interesting to see its profile rising…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article7116042.ece
April 2010
1 post
£40 a thesis!
Tonight I find myself mostly outraged that the British Library is charging £40 to digitise a thesis from its collection when it was free a year ago…
Time for a cost-benefit analysis of my own wallet…
March 2010
1 post
January 2010
4 posts
Just finished this...
It’s for a paper I have to submit tomorrow. Question is, can you see where the interface is between the client and the construction project team? That’s the point I’m trying to make. Real data, from some consultancy of mine…
A nice (visually at least) dashboard...
I rather like this dashboard:
Source
Although it does indicate the trend, it is limited in that it does not present historical data - you have to click through for that. If the orientation were changed and Tufte’s sparklines added, then things would get interesting…
How did you spend your holidays?
This is how I spent mine:
Started Boxing Day morning and finished about an hour ago.
Such is the life of the modern academic. Works out at roughly 45 minutes per paper, or 11.25 minutes per undergrad question and 15 minutes per postgrad question. Which is about right when you factor in the breaks necessary to keep the concentration up. Used a whole pen and a half of (really expensive) red...
December 2009
1 post
Construction mediation
One for my students - a good link on mediation as the first dispute resolution method in construction.
http://constructionlawva.com/personal-thoughts-on-construction-mediation/ (US law, but the principles are transferable)
November 2009
2 posts
And that's it for the colocation project
I took over a project looking at how education institutions can go about collocating in the same physical place to share common facilities and services. It went well, and here’s the result:
I’ll put a link to the actual document up as soon as I’ve got the final sign-off.
October 2009
2 posts
The Stirling Prize 2009
Seeing as I’ve got a research team looking at benefits quantification in the healthcare sector, it’s been really interesting to see two health projects nominated for this year’s Stirling Prize.
Two completely different projects, however. One - Kentish Town Health Centre - was an innovative NHS building, structured around the emerging “polyclinic” model. This one...
If only construction clients displayed this level...
September 2009
2 posts
What has become of this thing?
While preparing teaching materials tonight, I caught myself lol’ing at a new JCT SBC/Q clause which arrived with the second Revision over the summer. This cannot bode well.
Anyway, here it is - introducing Schedule 8 (the new one), cl. 2.1:
Without limiting either Party’s statutory and/or regulatory duties and responsibilities and/or the specific health and safety requirements of this...
"Good enough is best"
Finally the mainstream (albeit tech) commentators are waking up to the reality of the “good enough is best” problem and the barriers it creates when trying to diffuse something new into everyday practice.
I first encountered the attitude about eight years ago when working with Architects and Engineers in Amec. I could show them a new way of resolving a problem that they all agreed...
August 2009
3 posts
WatchRelated to the Stewart Brand comment below; here’s a good example of his insights. From the BBC’s “How Buildings Learn” series of his book.
Construction lawyers thinking about BIMs and... →
This is an interesting, if short, fluff piece on the future of BIMs in construction. We all know that’s coming. But what about the social media aspect? This is more interesting. Who would own the risk associated with ideas propagated through this medium, given that they tend to be more spontaneous and not necessarily thought through. Would, for example, a re-tweet of a design idea...