Moving from Blind Trust to Verified Data – Transforming AEC Through Intentional Innovation
The Roles of Humans and Technology – One of humanity’s greatest strengths (but also a significant weakness) is the ability to “operate in ignorance” – to move forward despite the unknown, uncertainty, or gaps in knowledge. This capacity for trial, error, and adaptation has driven remarkable progress and innovation, but has also resulted in catastrophic failures.
Biologically, we’re wired to conserve energy, often manifesting as an instinct to do as little as possible, until absolutely necessary. This tendency is reflected in fast thinking, a mental shortcut system described by Daniel Kahneman in his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, which enables quick decisions based on intuition, assumptions, observations, or past experiences, conserving energy but often leading to biases and errors.
In contrast, slow thinking, which requires deliberate analysis and intentional focus, consumes significantly more effort and energy. While essential for solving complex or novel problems, we instinctively resist this diligence unless absolutely required. When faced with implementing best-practice standards or complex information management systems, this resistance, to ignore, or gloss-over (or even glaze-over), often becomes a barrier to progress.
Overcoming resistance to change requires an intentional understanding of how humans and technology can work together, leveraging and complementing each other’s strengths to achieve better outcomes.
The Driving Analogy
Driving a car illustrates the human ability to perform tasks almost unconsciously, relying on fast thinking, past experience, and assumptions. Once learned, people can operate a vehicle with little conscious thought, often ignoring much of their surroundings while listening to music, holding a conversation, or even daydreaming.
This efficiency depends on assumptions and blind trust – an expectation that other drivers, pedestrians, and traffic system, will behave in a particular way. However, when the unexpected happens, such as another driver running a red light or a child darting into the road, those assumptions quickly force us to “pay attention” – to exercise deliberate, high-energy thinking, to assess and respond to the situation. This shift, from “autopilot” to intentional focus, can be lifesaving, but it also highlights the risks of blindly trusting people, systems or behaviours without adequate safeguards.
How Does Technology Help?
Humans are not infallible, and this is where technology steps in to complement judgment and address limitations. Just as modern cars assist drivers with tools like GPS navigation and collision avoidance systems, technology in AEC workflows supports humans by handling complex processing, routine tasks, and anomaly detection.
For example, automated systems in Information Management (BIM) manage vast datasets, metadata, and traceability requirements. They ensure consistency and flag potential risks that might otherwise go unnoticed, helping to prevent downstream issues. However, humans remain responsible for verifying outputs, interpreting results, and maintaining ethical oversight. Technology acts as an enabler and safeguard, but it cannot replace human judgment or accountability.
The Distinct Roles of Humans and Technology
Humans and technology bring unique strengths and limitations to information management, creating opportunities for powerful collaboration:
• The Human Role: Humans excel in synthesising complex information, applying judgment, and making value-based decisions. These strengths allow for contextual understanding and creativity essential for addressing nuanced challenges. However, humans are prone to cognitive biases, resistance to deliberate thinking, and lapses in memory or documentation, which can compromise decision-making.
• The Technology Role: Technology thrives where humans fall short, performing repetitive tasks with consistency, ensuring data accessibility and traceability, and rapidly processing large datasets with precision. Yet, it relies on accurate input data and sound logic and cannot interpret context or apply ethical reasoning. Poor implementation or oversight can also diminish its effectiveness.
The Power of Human-Technology Collaboration
The synergy between humans and technology is where the true potential lies. By automating routine tasks, technology reduces cognitive burden, allowing humans to focus on high-value decisions and creative problem-solving. Humans provide the ethical reasoning, contextual understanding, and oversight that technology cannot.
Together, this partnership fosters transparency, accountability, and efficiency. Humans attribute meaning to data, while technology ensures traceability and validation through frameworks like attribution and attestation. This collaboration is essential for navigating the complexities of AEC workflows, ensuring compliance, and delivering better project outcomes. By leveraging the complementary strengths of humans and technology, organisations can build a more resilient and adaptable approach to modern information management.
Trust, But Verify
Trust is essential in any process, but it must be built on truth and reliability. Systems require underlying data that is correct, complete, coordinated, resolved, accessible, and available – as the saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out” (GIGO). Without trustworthy data, even the most advanced technology systems will only make us more efficient at being wrong or making mistakes. Blind trust without verification can lead to errors, inefficiencies, or even catastrophic failures.
To truly trust data, we need two key components: attribution and attestation.
Information in AEC projects must be well-structured, traceable, and contextualised. Attribution provides this structure and context by adding critical metadata (data about data) to answer essential questions like, Who created the data, or who approved or accepted the data? What does it represent? When was it created? Why does it exist (for what purpose)? Where can the most recent version be found?
The process outlined in ISO19650 information management standard, is effectively a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle from ISO9001 quality management. By embedding metadata into workflows, it ensures that project teams can trust the purpose, responsibility, and status of data at every stage. This structured approach builds trust in data for both project management and long-term asset management.
Raw data on its own is meaningless noise – it only becomes valuable when we add context, purpose, and understanding, transforming it into information and knowledge. When combined with insight and professional judgment, it evolves into wisdom, enabling informed, ethical, and effective decision-making. It is the metadata (data about data), that transforms raw data into actionable, meaningful information.
But attribution alone is not enough – we also need attestation, a formal process where responsible professionals validate and record the accuracy, reliability, and compliance of data, designs, or decisions. Attestation ensures that if a problem arises in the future, there is a clear record of why decisions were made, who influenced those decisions, and what evidence was used.
Together, attribution and attestation ensure that data is both contextualised and verified as trustworthy. These twin pillars form the foundation for informed decision-making and accountability. By embracing the principle of “Trust, But Verify,” we create systems that are both reliable and resilient, safeguarding the integrity of our work and protecting the outcomes of our projects.
The Family Tree of Trust
Trustworthy data relies on understanding its lineage—the relationships and connections that establish its history and traceability over time. Much like a family tree, where each generation is linked and traceable to its ancestors, the “family tree” of trust in data management provides a clear, auditable, and verifiable history of information. This lineage allows us to trace the journey of data: who created it, when it was modified, why it exists, and how it connects to other decisions or outcomes.
Distributed ledger technologies, like blockchain, elevate this concept by providing an immutable, secure, and transparent record of data (a ledger). By preserving a data’s lineage in a way that cannot be altered, whether through errors or intentional manipulation, these technologies ensure the integrity and reliability of information. Such systems guarantee that every interaction with project data is securely tracked and preserved, preventing tampering or loss. This transparency strengthens accountability, enabling stakeholders to validate decisions and rely on accurate, trusted information.
When combined with the processing power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), the human-technology synergy becomes even more powerful. These tools automate the heavy lifting of collecting, processing, and verifying data, freeing humans to focus on applying judgment, creativity, and problem-solving. Together, they ensure data remains not only credible but also actionable.
The “family tree” of trust serves two critical purposes: enabling informed decision-making in the present and creating a reliable record that can be referenced if something goes wrong in the future. This “golden thread of information”, is highly relevant in the regulated AEC industry, where maintaining a transparent and verifiable history of data exchanges is essential. Accurate records of decisions, approvals, and updates ensure compliance with planning laws, building regulations, and safety standards. They also protect businesses from liability during audits or disputes. Immutable records provide a clear evidence and audit trail, demonstrating who made decisions, when they were made, and why—safeguarding both legal and professional accountability.
Centralised vs. Decentralised Information Management Systems
Accessing critical project data in the AEC sector has always been challenging due to the siloed nature of systems and workflows, not only across the many different organisations involved in projects but sometimes even within the same company. Effective information management requires systems that align with the unique fragmented dynamics of the sector—where dozens or even hundreds of companies collaborate for short-term projects.
Traditionally, centralised systems, managed by a single organisation, have been the norm for storing and sharing data. While they offer simplicity and control, centralised systems come with significant risks, including:
• Dependency on a Single Party: Restricted access or bottlenecks if the central entity withdraws, fails, or modifies policies.
• Limited Interoperability: Challenges in seamless collaboration among diverse stakeholders.
• Operational Inefficiencies: The need to navigate multiple centralised systems across projects creates delays and frustration.
Decentralised systems are better suited to AEC’s collaborative and distributed nature. These systems allow organisations to retain control over their own information while securely sharing data across a distributed network. Supported by technologies like distributed ledgers, decentralised systems ensure:
• Consistency in data quality across stakeholders.
• Traceability through tamper-proof records.
• Trust by eliminating reliance on a single controlling entity.
For example, blockchain-integrated distributed or federated Common Data Environments (CDEs) enable each organsisation to manage its data independently while contributing to a shared, transparent, and immutable record. This fosters:
• Transparency: All stakeholders have visibility into critical project data.
• Collaboration: Better coordination and communication among project teams.
• Accountability: Auditable histories of actions and decisions.
Although decentralised systems introduce technical complexities, these can be addressed by IT experts, allowing ordinary users to work within familiar systems while benefiting from a more resilient, collaborative, and efficient framework. The ‘single source of truth’ in ISO19650 does not refer to a single software system but to a unified, trustworthy record of project data that integrates multiple sources. This distributed approach ensures consistency, accurate information, and organisational autonomy across stakeholders.
Why Information Matters
At the heart of every AEC project is information – nothing gets planned, constructed, or operated without it. Access to high-quality information enables teams to collaborate effectively, make informed decisions, and deliver projects safely, on time, within budget, and to expected quality.
Conversely, poor-quality information, whether incorrect, incomplete, uncoordinated, or late, can lead to delays, disputes, rework, cost overruns, and serious safety risks. Beyond operations, information serves as vital evidence of compliance with regulations, including planning approvals, building regulations, environmental protections, and safety standards. Accurate, verified information reduces liability and ensures projects meet their legal and ethical obligations.
This is why robust information management practices, supported by attribution, attestation, and decentralised systems, are essential. They ensure the quality, reliability, and accountability of information needed to build safe, sustainable, and compliant assets.
Moving Forward: Embracing Innovation
To move forward into advanced information management practices and fully embrace technology as a tool to improve human productivity, safety, and sustainability, we must confront one of our most ingrained tendencies: the instinct to avoid or ignore complex challenges. Progress requires overcoming resistance to change, and intentionally exploring best-practice standards and cutting-edge technologies that transform information management and collaboration.
Leaders in the AEC industry carry a duty of care to ensure that projects meet safety and compliance standards. Beyond legal requirements, this is an ethical responsibility to the public and to future generations. By embedding robust information management practices, leaders can uphold this duty, fostering trust and demonstrating their commitment to intentional diligence, sustainable and accountable business practices, based on adaptable resilience, transparency, and trust for generations to come.
Ralph Montague is an Architect and Director at ArcDox BIM Consultants, a member of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI), member of the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) Technical Mirror Committee for BIM Standards, co-founder of the BIM Coordinators Summit and the international BIM Heroes Community. With over 30 years of industry experience, Ralph specialises in advising individuals, businesses, and project teams on information management practices and implementing BIM standards (ISO19650).
www.ArcDox.com www.BIMhero.io
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