When I asked about the Titles that those in BIM had, I got various titles beyond the ones I asked about.

Here are some of the ones I received:

CAD Manager

BIM Program Manager

BIM Technologist

Engineering IT Manager

Senior Design Software Analyst

BIM Implementation Specialist

BIM Specialist

Digital Design Manager

Design Systems Manager

Production Manager Revit

With this kind of spread and breadth of titles, it concerns me that there is not a narrowing and more formalized way of selecting a title for staffers in BIM.

The range of Titles that people have seems to be all over the map over the last few years and continues to be that way.

In 2009 there were 43.8% of staffers with the BIM Manager title and in 2008 there were 41.7%

What has gone up is the randomness of title for those that view themselves as overseeing BIM.  While 2008 had only 19.4% having random titles which moved up to 27.4% in 2009 and then went up to the 33.3% you see now.  That means that 1/3 of those working in a BIM oversight roll have random titles that may not transfer from one firm to another.

The 2010 BIM Survey that I undertook was to prep for a class and to just see what the industry was doing.

One of the questions I wanted to address was related to the percentage of projects that firms had in BIM.  I wanted to find out not just how many, but how much of their work was actually being done in BIM.

The results showed that in 2010, a little more than 25% of the users responding showed that they were working less than 20% of their projects in BIM.  So if we think about 100 firms that would mean that 25 of them had less than 20% in BIM.

Fifty percent (50%) responded that they are actually working over 60% of their projects in BIM.  That is up from just 30% last year.  In 2008 the percentage was 37% (which I think indicated some early adopter, large firms responding at the high end)

Comparing all this to 2009 and 2008, I see steady rise in projects moving toward BIM.

Click on the image to see it full size.

To read about the process I took in creating the Survey – read this post

Back when I was developing my BIM Manager class for Autodesk University 2010 I invited you to participate in a survey to collect data for the class.

Over the next few posts I will share some of the data collected and my thoughts on that data.  My purpose was to collect real data from real world users across the spectrum of firms.  the survey was in three parts and had 196 respondents.

The three surveys covered the position, your training efforts and the final one covered software and projects.  The surveys were opened on October 26, 2010 and closing on Nov. 13, 2011.  I used SurveyMonkey to create and collect the data.

After collecting the data I compared it to my 2008 and 2009 surveys on the same topics to see if there were trends or marked changes in responses.  Compiling the data prior to my presentation at AU was done and it became a large portion of my class.  The class did not present all of the data due to time restrictions, so I will be including some that was not presented.

Please stay tuned as I present my findings.

How many BIM Managers are there?

I asked this question on my Annual BIM Survey and so did AUGI.  AUGI did its Salary Survey for 2010 and published the results in AUGIWorld magazine which you can see the full report here.

I want to zero in on the BIM Manager title to see how it has changed over the years.  I looked back to 2008, 2009 and 2010.

What the AUGI survey shows is that there is a larger and larger portion of managers who are starting to use the BIM Manager title.   In 2008 there were 131, then in 2009 there were 148 and finally in 2010 there were 258.  This is a showing that now 30% of the responders who define themselves as Managers are in BIM positions.  That is over 15% more than last year.

In my survey I asked for job titles and found that over 44% of those that used some form of a BIM title were defined as BIM Managers.

That compares to 43% last year and 41% in 2008.

The 33% that have some other form of title include things like:

CAD Manager
BIM Program Manager
BIM Technologist
Engineering IT Manager
Senior Design Software Analyst
BIM Implementation Specialist
BIM Specialist
Digital Design Manager
Design Systems Manager
Production Manager Revit

I asked this question on my BIM Manager Survey for 2010 and here are the results…

In 2008 37% of those who held a BIM title (like BIM Manager) said that they had a formal written Job Description.

In 2009 that number was reduced to 32.4%

The trend toward lower numbers continues in 2010 with only 29.3% of those responding saying that they had a formal written Job Description.

I think this trend might be caused by more people informally moving into BIM positions in firms that have not created job descriptions.  These people migrated into the position (or maybe were hired into other positions under other job descriptions).

My concern is that if this trend continues,the industry may miss an opportunity to define the role.  Without a generally accepted definition of this new BIM Manager position, there runs a risk of the position having such random application that it carries little weight on a resume or when advancing your career.

To see an example that I have created -  go here