If you already do this for a living: The split between activities done once per project and activities repeated for every appointment. Most gaps appear in the second group, on the third or fourth appointment, when nobody re-reads the first one.
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ISO 19650 is a series of international standards about managing information for buildings and infrastructure: what is needed, who produces it, how it is checked and shared, and how it is kept. Part 1 sets out the concepts; Part 2 covers delivery (design and construction); Part 3 covers operation; Part 5 covers security.
Information here means everything: models, drawings, schedules, programmes, certificates, meeting minutes. The format does not matter; the management does.
The function, not the person
Older UK standards named roles: project information manager, task information manager. ISO 19650 deliberately does not. It describes activities, such as setting requirements, checking information or keeping the CDE running, and asks each party to make sure they are done. Together, those activities are the party’s information management function.
Who does them is the party’s choice. A large contractor may have a dedicated team. A small engineering practice may give them to a senior engineer and a technician. A client may do some itself and appoint a consultant for the rest. What the standard asks is that every activity has a named person, and that the person has the time and skills to do it.
A housing association tells its architect it wants “a BIM project”. The architect produces good models. At handover the maintenance team asks for asset data in their system’s format, by block and flat. Nobody asked for that, so nobody delivered it, and two people spend three months re-keying data from PDFs.
Before appointing anyone, the association names its head of asset data as responsible for its information requirements, with a consultant to help. The requirements say which asset data is needed, in what format and by when. Every tender is priced against them, and the data arrives in the right format at handover.
The client goes first
The client, the appointing party, has a function too, and it comes first. Before it appoints any designer, project manager or contractor, it should decide who will carry out its own activities. A client without experience can get help from a consultant or from one of its appointed parties, but it stays accountable: the standard does not let it hand the responsibility away.
Eight stages, two rhythms
ISO 19650-2 describes the delivery process in eight stages. Two of them happen once per project: assessment and need at the start, and close-out at the end. The six in between are repeated for every appointment the client makes: designers, project manager, cost consultant, contractor.
- 1Assessment and needOnce per project: requirements, milestones, standard, methods, CDE
- 2Invitation to tenderFor each appointment: EIR and tender information
- 3Tender responsePre-appointment BEP, capability and capacity, risks
- 4AppointmentBEP confirmed, responsibility matrix, TIDPs and MIDP
- 5MobilisationPeople, IT and methods tested before work starts
- 6Collaborative productionProduce, check, review and share in the CDE
- 7Information model deliveryAuthorised by the lead, accepted by the client
- 8Project close-outOnce per project: archive and lessons learned
That rhythm explains where gaps appear. The project-wide pieces (requirements, standard, methods, CDE) are written once, usually with care. By the fourth appointment, the tender and appointment pieces are often copied from the first without checking they still fit.
Plan for the busy week
Putting information tasks into existing roles keeps them close to the work and spreads the skills. Its known risk is priority: when a deadline hits, the information tasks are the first to slip. Agree the time each person spends on them, write it into the responsibility matrix, and check it at each stage review.
Key takeaways
- The information management function is a set of activities, not a role. Each party assigns them to named people, often in existing roles.
- The client must assign its own function before it appoints anyone else; it can get help, but it stays accountable.
- Two stages happen once per project (assessment and need, close-out); the six in between repeat for every appointment.
- The usual failure is not ignorance but priority: busy people drop information tasks first. Plan for that.
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Who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed for each information management task.
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