News

25 ‘Top Trump’ roles key to digital twin success

The Centre for Digital Built Britain’s (CDBB) has identified 25 roles necessary for the successful adoption of the Information Management Framework (IMF) and National Digital Twin, and drawn up a ‘Top Trump’ profile of each one.

The CDBB, in partnership with the Construction Innovation Hub, defines roles in three categories: national, organisational and additional. National roles are typically responsible for influencing and advising the industry, and include the likes of cyber security specialist, data regulator and policy maker. Organisational roles are typically responsible for advising their own organisations on adopting national guidelines, and include the likes of data architect, data custodian and process modeller. Additional roles include change manager, data quality analyst and user researcher.

The CDBB has developed ‘Top Trumps’-style profile cards for the 25 roles, ranking the skills necessary or desirable for each: https://www.cdbb.cam.ac.uk/top-trump-role-profile-cards

The profile cards form part of the Skills and Competency Framework that the CDBB has drafted following a series of interviews with representatives of built environment organisations of different sizes, training bodies and local councils to identify the skills and roles needed to adopt the IMF and where the gaps are. Transformational leadership is the critical skill identified.

The Skills and Competency Framework states: “Leaders do not need to have a depth of technical literacy but do need to recognise the opportunity and benefits that data and data sharing provides. This is a skill area where there appears to be a significant skills gap at both organisational and national levels. Nationally, this is around the ability to articulate the benefits of the National Digital Twin in terms that organisations can understand and engage with, and appropriately incentivise organisations to adopt the IMF.

“At the organisation level, senior leaders such as CEOs and CIOs who play a critical role in cultural transformation, are starting to understand the value of data but struggle to quantify the benefits and develop a clear narrative to drive better practices across their organisation.”

Collaborative data sharing is in some cases limited by “protectionism, and a lack of awareness that pre-existing data already generated could have a further use elsewhere and therefore be repurposed”.

The industry also falls short in its “ability to develop robust business cases using accurate and up to date evidence, with some organisations tending to rely on intuition over insight”.

The CDBB also sounded a warning that some organisations are “jumping straight to analytics, visualisation and reporting without taking the time to focus on data quality, which can lead to lack of trust”. Furthermore user experience “is a critical skillset in need of significant development to promote better adoption of technology by focusing on intuitive and accessible design that meets user needs”.

Download the framework: https://www.cdbb.cam.ac.uk/files/010321cdbb_skills_capability_framework_vfinal.pdf