Exclusive interview with Rebecca De Cicco

UK Construction Online talk to Rebecca De Cicco about the BIM Level 2 mandate, Women in BIM and training within the construction industry.

Rebecca has lived in the UK for almost 10 years and following a series of successful senior roles in varied architectural organisations, Rebecca now manages her own consultancy, Digital Node, providing advice and insight to construction professionals all over the world on advanced digital solutions on projects as well as implementation and management processes. It is with this knowledge that she is able to communicate, train and manage teams in a BIM environment as well as ensure her knowledge is spread throughout the industry within education and focused groups.

Rebecca works with Building Smart UK, sits on the Autodesk Developer Network and feedback community and supports the London BIM initiative within the BIM Regions that help support and grow an industry. She is also a strong advocate for diversity and young people (having been part of a future focused industry group, BIM2050) and also teaches, mentors and trains young people regarding future processes and BIM. Her interest in training and upskilling also involved a strong social media presence for herself (@becdecicco), her organisation (@digital_node) and finally her diversity group (@womeninBIM).

 

Could you tell us about your background in the industry?

Yes sure, I started off in Australia as an Architect and always had a passion for how technology could start to influence and help buildings take shape and form. As a result I moved into a variety of differing roles before moving to the UK in 2006 where I have worked in architecture and construction since. I was employed by a variety of both small and large scale architectural firms before founding my own business Digital Node two years ago. My roles evolved in industry and I became fascinated by how BIM can start to shape how we design, build and manage our projects and therefore I now focus on supporting companies implement, develop and utilise the BIM process. There was a good opportunity for me to do this at the time, due to the lack of current skills in industry and a poor pool of resources to support.

 

How old were you when you first released you had an interest in construction and was there anything in particular that inspired you?

I was always passionate about starting my own business, even as a young girl, and as a result drove myself hard to become the best at what I did. I never really felt that I was interested in Construction as such, but I was always fascinated by how technology and how it evolved as I was growing up started to shape how we work and interact. I would have been about 12 or so when I realised this.

I studied Architecture in Australia and always had a passion for creating spaces that challenged existing conditions whilst exploring ways to justify why space and the way it functioned could exist as it did. There were no real role models back then for young women in construction and it was a shame that I had very few people to look up to. However, my father as a small business owner in the supply chain side of delivery of construction always influenced me in making decisions and thinking about Construction as a career.

 

Was running your own company always part of your career plan?

Yes. Digital Node was formed out of the creation of Conceptual Node back in 2002 which focused on supporting companies utilise digital technologies in a construction context (when I lived in Australia). BIM felt a natural progression of this, and I felt there was a huge opportunity for me to grow a business in this context, relative to the UK mandate and how the industry was evolving from 2011 to today. Digital Node was formed in 2012 and has been around ever since. More recently I have scaled the business and now have clients in Australia supporting Digital Node Australia where I am co-located. There are many opportunities for the business both in Australia and in the UK and I hope to work in both locations as much as I can.

 

How did Women in BIM come about?

As I worked in Construction and in a variety of roles at the early stages of my career, I never really noticed an issue with the gender and diversity gap in Construction. It wasn’t until I started to move to more senior roles, that the numbers of women began to drop and the perception of women in industry was poor. At that time, I was also attending a variety of BIM related events in the UK and become a key part of the BIM community and felt it was a huge problem that I was a minority as I knew there were other women who were also challenged by the same issues. I therefore founded the group in 2012 following some key global BIM events and the numbers have continued to grow since then. We now have over 200 people connected to the LinkedIn group, an active Twitter following, and connections to other diversity groups globally.

I saw an opportunity that existed so I created something and it has driven me to keep it going ever since.

 

What do you think needs to happen to get more women involved in the construction industry and do think BIM has a big part to play?

As I said, there is not one way in which we can address this issue. We all need to focus on ensuring women are encouraged and retained. I have always said that there are many young women entering construction related roles, but the number who remain and work their way into senior roles is still too low. The issues are not BIM related, but there are many key BIM related themes that women can aid in developing as part of a future workforce.

Diversity and inclusion of all genders, ages and minorities must be addressed in order to tackle the skills gap. This is especially relevant within the context of BIM as we have a large workforce in the UK, but the skills are often not available.

 

The construction industry is still very male dominated. Do you think there’s a glass ceiling that could see women leave the industry simply because they feel they can’t break through it?

Culturally the industry is still struggling to be inclusive on a gender front. As a result, I do believe there is a glass ceiling we still need to break through. One issue is still equality in salary and pay. Why this is still happening is ridiculous and must change in order for our industry as a whole to change. The need to break through a ceiling is a ridiculous concept but we do need male dominant figures to help support this.

 

 If so, what are reasons for this and what can be done to help?

 As an industry we need to support education and drive the diversity incentive to young people as much as possible. The only way to do this is to support the drive via industry. Industry and education need to ensure that they collaborate and support incentives such as Design, Engineer, Construct and Stemettes. These sorts of groups can begin to influence young adults and therefore grow a more diverse workforce for construction. As I already explained though it is a bigger issue that the numbers drop as we move up the ladder, so the retaining of women in Construction is an equal, if not bigger, issue.

 

Do you have any plans for Women in BIM going forward?

As a group, we are a networking team, but the aim to grow the group was to ensure we had support, a soundboard and a place where we could discuss these types of things openly. It is important to be able to openly discuss these types of issues and therefore the group works predominantly to provide a voice. However, moving into 2016 and beyond the aim is to grow a database of BIM Experts that can be utilised to support showing presence at industry events in regard to BIM and we are currently working on a way to create this database and share it to the wider industry.

 

With the UK mandate for BIM Level 2 approaching, how well placed do you think the construction industry is?

Industry consists of over 3 million people and it was an ambitious attempt that the level 2 programme would be completed satisfied across industry. There are many companies and organisations rapidly advancing their skills but this is not telling of the entire workforce. There are some individuals who are more advanced than others, some companies who are pushing the drive more than others and therefore it is impossible to predict where we currently are placed in regard to our knowledge and skillset. Industry reports such as the NBS BIM Survey help us to establish some gauge of current industry positioning but again this would only reference a small portion of industry who are well engaged already.

 

What the Level 2 BIM programme has enabled is the rapid change throughout industry to grow, build capability and work in a digital environment. Something that we are seeing throughout and therefore the mandate has only propelled us to change the way we work and interact in construction as we were an industry known to be culturally incapable of change, poorly using technology and procuring work based on price over skill. This has now begun to change and we are seeing positive results on live projects.

 

You were involved in the BIM 2050 programme, did that play a part in you wanting to get involved in the teaching and training of BIM?

Not particularly no. I was always passionate about teaching. I started teaching very early after graduating as I had a particular skill in being able to relate to and engage with students. This has obviously grown as I continually support Design, Engineer, Construct (http://ift.tt/1Jp82ec ) workshops and mentor students in Construction related careers. I have also more recently supported two MsC programmes for the Universities of Westminster and Bath and both of these opportunities have enabled me to not only interact with students, but understand their perceptions of the way the Construction industry currently works.

 

Is a lack of training holding back the industry?

As most aren’t aware, statutory training requirements in the UK are a poor low level of l.5 days per employee per year. We are running at risk of not training staff properly in order to be able to deliver and there is no consistent training methodology we can go by. The positive is that the BIM Task group have provided a framework to utilise in regard to BIM Level 2 training in particular with the BIM Learning Outcomes Framework. The framework ensures that all of those providing training consistently deliver to a level and that they can be compared against. Currently Digital Node has been working alongside the BSI to ensure the BSI BIM Course offering aligns to these learning outcomes and therefore are a good framework to go by.

The post Exclusive interview with Rebecca De Cicco appeared first on UK Construction Online.