In the first part of this series, Justin Kirby of the Start With Smart Group and Digital Operations Working Group used systems design to diagnose the project-operations gap, showing how deep silos cause traditional static handover records to inevitably degrade into obsolete digital museums
In this concluding part, he moves from diagnosis to exploration, showing how the industry might approach plugging this gap through a multi-pronged engagement strategy.
By looking at the upstream role of the master systems integrator, performance-related contracts that break the procurement race to the bottom, and self-funding loops driven by energy savings, the aim is to show that plugging the gap requires a continuous design process rather than simply publishing rigid technical standards.
1. Frontline execution: The master systems integrator and product-solution fit
Because traditional information management standards leave this definitive gap regarding performance data and active maintenance loops, achieving a genuine product-solution fit requires working backwards from the operational frontline rather than forcing rigid project models forward.
This requires a clear focus on the operator’s actual jobs-to-be-done. Operators deploy smart software and data-led maintenance platforms to address specific everyday pain points and achieve performance gains. The providers behind these platforms know exactly which telemetry, analytics, and automation data they require to function, placing the master systems integrator at the very centre of this frontline digital handshake.
However, there is a significant lack of understanding within the facilities management and operations domains about what this handshake actually requires. This is equally true of those from information management, who often assume that perfect data geometry on paper automatically translates into operational utility.
On the other hand, there is a pervasive belief among operational teams that smart buildings should fall exclusively under the auspices of operations, as a tool for maintenance optimisation. While this perspective is correct regarding day-to-day outcomes, it completely overlooks the underlying engineering plumbing required to deliver that data. This misalignment stems from failing to separate the operational logic of the independent data layer, which acts as the unified pipeline delivering performance data to those software platforms, from the two distinct types of labour required to sustain it. There is a fundamental difference between the integration labour required of the technical supply chain during construction and the actual operational labour performed by facility teams using the platforms day-to-day. Contractually, that critical integration labour can be prohibitively expensive for operations to retrofit post-handover. Ideally, it must be executed upstream, handled either directly with the client or routed through the main contractor alongside the Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing and Extra-Low Voltage supply chains who physically install the plant and network endpoints.
Because operational teams rarely understand what an independent data layer is or what an integrator actually does at this stage, they remain vulnerable to systemic commercial risks. Emerging practice shows that the master systems integrator role should execute two specific strategic functions that the vast majority of current market actors are simply not delivering.
First, at the onset of a project, the client’s Employer’s Information Requirements, the contractor’s Building Execution Plan, the design specifications, and the asset guidelines routinely conflict. The master systems integrator should align these mismatched documents to create an open, independent data layer fully owned by the client. Without this upstream intervention, the software platform provider performs data modelling by default solely to make their systems function, meaning the client’s asset information becomes locked in a proprietary silo.
Second, the role should encompass semantic modelling, building machine-readable context into the open model so that artificial intelligence platforms can interpret how different physical assets and sensors relate to one another, providing the foundation for automating the operator’s actual requirements.
It is exactly these specific stakeholders, this technical middle layer, and this cross-domain conversation that I have been actively bringing to the table through both my current role as founder of the Start with Smart Group and my previous role as Executive Director of the Digital Buildings Council. Exposing the blind spots on both sides of this chasm reveals precisely why the original RIBA Smart Buildings Overlay failed to get much traction despite the fanfare surrounding its launch.
The fundamental problem with the original overlay is that it is not framed around the project-operations gap, nor was it framed around the data modelling required to protect the independent data layer at handover and secure a proper digital handshake.
At the same time, it completely ignores the independent data model and the semantic modelling required to ensure buildings are AI-ready. Instead, it functioned merely as a request to map stakeholders left to right along a linear construction timeline, advocating for early engagement and outlining overlapping activities along a rigid path. If the current review continues to ignore these critical, distinct issues, it is hard to see how the framework will gain any more market traction than it did originally. This is precisely why we designed the DOWG playbook: to provide the pragmatic framework needed to close this industry gap.
This technical middle layer connects directly to the commissioning agent’s evolving role. Rather than relying on traditional, one-off seasonal commissioning at practical completion, modern commissioning agents utilise monitor-based platforms for continuous commissioning to actively prove that systems perform contractually over time. However, this performance piece goes far beyond joining dots to static asset data. Ensuring this dynamic data architecture survives the handover window requires connecting middle-layer mechanics directly to top-down drivers, requirements, and commercial realities.
2. A coordinated engagement approach for market diffusion
While bottom-up framework alignment engages maintenance teams on the ground and can lead to rapid technical agreements between stakeholders, at least in theory, relying on natural market diffusion means these methodologies will take significant time to filter into actual practice.
This risk of natural delay is precisely why top-down drivers from asset owners are necessary to provide the structural and contractual requirements needed to enforce adoption. In the public sector, this top-down engagement is already established through mandatory standards, specifically the Government’s FMS002 asset management standard and NHS England Estates policy, which are directly fed by the practical crosswalks and alignment work of the ADS Alliance detailed in part 1.
Expanding top-down engagement into the commercial sector may also require a dual-sided contractual mechanism binding both the delivery and operational phases to long-term performance metrics. On the delivery side, this involves a shift toward performance-related contracts that give the traditional Soft Landings framework actual commercial teeth, effectively transforming handover into a coordinated Soft Launch.
As discussed during industry panels I have moderated at Digital Construction Week and the London Build Expo, this mechanism represents a practical means of obligating main contractors to remain engaged on-site for 24 to 36 months post-handover. The upshot being that contractors would no longer be able to use static documentation as a compliance shield to walk away upon securing practical completion. They would instead be contractually bound to verify that the building meets the asset owner’s benchmarks, such as a NABERS performance rating.
Crucially, this contractual enforcement must also extend to the operational side of the chasm if the facilities management sector is to resolve its long-standing repositioning problem. During a recent panel I moderated at IWFM Live, the industry debated how facilities management can transition from a traditional cost centre to a high-performance value engine that delivers on asset owners’ priorities, such as net-zero targets, energy efficiency, and occupant experience. If long-term performance is to be maintained, these frontline operational teams are ultimately the ones who must deliver it, and they need a clear mechanism to visibly demonstrate the true strategic value they bring to an asset.
However, achieving this transformation requires shifting the commercial model away from a race to the bottom in procurement. In the current market, procurement driven solely by the lowest bid forces providers to secure margins through reactive call-out fees, effectively incentivising operational failure. For operations to truly demonstrate their value as a performance engine, these outcomes must be agreed upon in advance.
Writing performance metrics directly into long-term operational contracts stops the race to the bottom, realigns commercial incentives toward continuous optimisation, and provides the framework operators need to prove their impact to asset owners. This demonstrates that systemic engagement must look significantly broader than traditional information management, linking technical supply chains directly to the commercial realities of both project delivery and long-term facility operations.
3. The incremental journey: Escaping the all-or-nothing trap
Implementing this comprehensive engagement approach does not mean that digital transformation must be an all-or-nothing proposition, in which asset owners and operators see zero benefit until the entire global framework emerges from all the dot-joining I have been outlining.
Presenting a complex, fully integrated data requirement can appear overwhelming, particularly for estates that are currently less digitally mature. Many of these organisations lack even a basic, reliable asset register, and they simply do not have the immediate capital budget or maturity to execute deep data alignment work. For these portfolios, a highly pragmatic and immediate alternative lies in low-hanging fruit such as rapid energy optimisation, establishing a powerful commercial conversation that appeals directly to the shared interests of both asset owners and operators.
Asset owners and operators can deploy cost-effective optimisation platforms that require minimal up-front investment and little to no disruption to existing daily facility workflows. By focusing strictly on optimising existing building management systems and HVAC infrastructure, these tools deliver immediate reductions in utility costs. This practical option applies directly to the operational side, proving that operators can deliver verifiable cash savings early in the digital lifecycle.
Crucially, the savings generated from these quick wins can be captured on the balance sheet and used as a dedicated, self-funding budget to pay for the deeper data consultancy, framework alignment, and advanced platform integration required to climb the maturity curve. While recent temperature spikes and climate volatility have made building optimisation increasingly necessary just to keep environments stable, most estates are still stuck reacting to these pressures day to day. By intentionally capturing the immediate savings from fixing these basic operational issues, organisations can build a self-funding business case loop, using today’s urgent efficiencies to fund tomorrow’s long-term digital growth.
4. Strategic conclusion: Engagement as the design process
Reconciling these conflicting layers requires a fundamental shift in how the industry views market engagement. True digital transformation is not a cosmetic post-project PR exercise, nor is it a matter of acting as an industry town crier, shouting about a predetermined standard and framework that supports it. Engagement is the non-linear and iterative design process itself.
Solving a multi-sided wicked problem across the built environment requires a systemic framework that orchestrates a broad conversation between entirely different stakeholder groups. The starting point of this facilitation is helping each group understand that they operate under fundamentally different commercial realities, mindsets, methodologies, and daily workflows. Because you cannot solve a problem that you have no real-world experience with, breaking through this mutual lack of understanding is a prerequisite. True facilitation means ensuring these isolated groups can see beyond their own specialised priorities to recognise the operational and financial constraints that drive the rest of the ecosystem.
I mention this because when traditional practitioners critique an outside-in design approach by arguing that a cross-domain perspective cannot account for the deep nuances of their specific sectors, they entirely misunderstand the design process. The built environment is populated by professionals with variations of T-shaped skill sets, meaning they know a lot about a little and a little about a lot. In my experience, there are zero square-shaped skill sets in this sector, because nobody knows a lot about a lot.
The reality is that although individuals within the industry may have overlapping experience across different areas, no single person possesses deep, frontline expertise across the entire ecosystem.
Crucially, this specialised focus has far too often left the built environment with two massive systemic gaps. That’s because very few professionals possess specific platform development experience, and even fewer have the lean thinking and mindsets required to understand the diffusion of innovation.
Because these groups fundamentally operate within their own specialised priorities and rarely have a broader platform development perspective, an insular claim to nuance within any single silo is just as limited as an external viewpoint.
More importantly, this critique misses the fundamental purpose of systemic facilitation. The objective of this two-part series is not to hand down a rigid, prescriptive solution to the market. The objective is to present a collaborative design and engagement process through which a viable solution can be developed and sustained. The industry’s deep operational nuances are not ignored. It is precisely what is facilitated, extracted, and resolved through a structured, multi-sided conversation where all key stakeholders finally have active representation.
Project teams routinely fall into the trap of assuming that simply authoring and publishing a new technical standard or bottom-up framework will inherently result in lifecycle success. In reality, even if the bottom-up layer achieves an ideal technical alignment between project classifications and maintenance tools relatively quickly, relying on that alignment alone means adoption will take an incredibly long time to diffuse through a fragmented market.
This risk of natural delay is exactly why a multi-level architecture is a necessity. By simultaneously engaging the top-down layer through mandatory public sector policy and private sector performance-related contracts, the industry introduces the powerful commercial drivers required to accelerate adoption far faster than bottom-up alignment ever could on its own.
True digital transformation cannot be achieved by digitising existing, isolated construction silos. It is achieved by utilising a continuous, user-centric design process that supports these collaborative aims, helping the market arrive at a collective solution and gradually blurring commercial boundaries until those data-degrading silos disappear entirely.
To discuss these themes in more detail, Justin Kirby is moderating a panel on the Digital Handshake at London Build Expo in November.
The post Bridging the chasm part 2: A systemic design approach to the project-operations gap appeared first on Planning, Building & Construction Today.
