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INDUSTRY focus Leaning into learning Graphisoft Learn is Graphisoft’s official knowhow and training programme for anyone interested in learning more about Archicad and BIM, whether they are designers, coordinators or a BIM Manager. David Chadwick reports Panteleimon Ioannidis, Director, Global Professional Services at Graphisoft How would you fare when presented with 20 questions to determine how much you know about the software you are currently using? Let me give you some examples: Which field/button would you use to add a new thermal block? You are provided with four possible answers numbered on the accompanying drawing. With more focus on the drawing than the design, how do you create pointers for dimension texts - with four possible solutions provided for you? The 20 questions are drawn from a large bank, so running the test a second time won't raise the same questions. Graphisoft is serious about its Learn programme. It began running it online seven years ago and it has since developed into a comprehensive set of learning programmes that can be aimed at individual Archicad users or dedicated groups, like a single practice, with a programme researched and based on the client's industry niche. It also creates training courses ranging from basic BIM levels teaching architects, trainees and students the rudiments of BIM through to BIM Authoring, Coordination, and Management. I spoke to Panteleimon Ioannidis, Director, Global Professional Services at Graphisoft, who runs the 40-strong team that developed and helps run Graphisoft Learn, about the motivations and philosophy behind the programme. He explained that it was always Graphisoft's goal to offer a vendor-based training programme, initially starting with classroom-based courses. Still, with the growth of online sessions, accelerated by COVID-19, these have naturally expanded into a full range of online sessions. Graphisoft wanted to do something more though, explained Panteleimon. Instead of just putting somebody in front of a screen and running through a company PowerPoint, they wanted to make it more relevant to their users, offering a range of options to suit their requirements, age, experience, and need, or otherwise, for human interaction. A flexible programme was developed to cover all issues. FROM MICROLEARNING TO BIM MANAGEMENT It can all start with Microlearning or Foundation training, which are very snappy topics with short training curves. There is no restriction on the topics being covered, but the website or short course-based sessions provide either what you need to know about a product or a sample to encourage you to dig deeper. The next, advanced, level, provides users with the ability to use the tools more efficiently, covering most of the topics in greater detail. From there, students can go on to expert training, where the focus is more on strategies which is more useful for project architects or BIM Managers. The whole development process is flexible, allowing users to progress at their level. Each of these courses can be approached independently, but putting them all together gives students the ability to create workflows, which demystifies the whole process of building and managing a project, and where BIM workflows sit within your BIM Authoring tool. BIM AUTHOR, COORDINATOR AND MANAGER Three simple programmes that crystallise roles within an architectural practice. Graphisoft wanted the training programme to reflect the needs of a practice. Pantelis used his previous role as a BIM manager in one of the large practices in London as his blueprint. He explained that an architect's role could be defined in three stages - creating the model, coordinating the model, or managing a project and the whole office. He aimed to ensure that the training programme reflected people's needs, enabling them to relate to Graphisoft's architectural solutions. The BIM Author module, he said, focuses 16 September/October 2023
INDUSTRY focus on creating a 3D model and adding documentation, handling design options, visualising the model, and preparing it for submission to planning authorities. The BIM Coordinator segment focuses on internal and external coordination, preparing a model to share within the team and with other disciplines. It also looks at quality assurance issues and making sure that others can read your model in whatever software they are using. BIM Manager looks at a project strategically in the context of current international standards, starting from ISO 19 650, the first international standard for BIM. In this segment, Pantelis explained, they teach the theory of ISO, how they are set up, and what the requirements are. The programme shows how these can be applied in practice and used within Archicad, moving from project setup to communications coordination with other disciplines. COURSES AND CERTIFICATIONS I asked how the courses are presented to individuals or whole practices. Pantelis said that Graphisoft offers levels to suit all users, from individual courses that people can use at their own pace to online or face-to-face sessions or, if requested, to a whole architectural practice. The most popular are those that are global, which usually are attended online by 40 to 50 users, with a similar number of sessions available annually. The programmes are structured to allow people to start at different times, include specialised demos to cover specific topics, allow interaction with other students or with the trainers, and have an online forum. Pantelis said one of the beauties of this type of programme is that it brings together people from different countries, where they can see how the whole building design topic is approached in different geographies. Each of the above modules - BIM Author, BIM Coordinator, and BIM Manager - provide attendees with full certification upon successfully completing the courses. Setting up a training programme for a practice is different. It becomes a bespoke programme where, initially, a Business Review is conducted, establishing the needs, current skill levels, and resources of the practice, building up a programme based on their requirements or future aspirations. The consultant running the programme becomes more closely involved with the practice, providing full support, clinic sessions, and face-to-face reviews looking at the workflows involved. Such a programme is, of course, charged at a rate to suite the practice, based on the numbers of individuals involved in each of the segments involved in the course. It is not available globally, but in areas where Graphisoft offices are situated, such as the UK, US, Italy, Hungary and Singapore. In some countries this might be set up by local distributors. The costs cover the development of an implementation plan and its execution. THE GRAPHISOFT TEAM Pantelis currently has 40 or so people working on the Learn programme, selected from people who have worked in the industry either as modellers, coordinators or BIM managers, supplemented by others who have come through Graphisoft's pipeline, working at Graphisoft on the technical support side, learning what issues people have while working on Archicad and other software. It's a mixture of different experiences, Pantelis explained. And then there are the students. Aiming at the next generation of architects, Graphisoft has run student programmes or set up localised user groups within universities to introduce students to the software and offer a range of free solutions to encourage its uptake. One exciting aspect of this, Pantelis explained, is that broader use of Graphisoft's BIMcloud has introduced a growing number of students to Archicad together with Graphisoft's collaboration solution. ''We are finding an amazing number of students working on their University projects, designing them with Archicad and starting collaborating on them at home using BIMcloud.'' There is plenty of additional information online about Graphisoft training, including sample files that Archicad customers have downloaded, which are freely available, set at different levels, and which other Archicad users can freely explore. https://learn.graphisoft.com September/October 2023 17
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