In order to test my assumptions regarding the digital habits of New Zealand architecture practices I put together a few questions and informally emailed a number of my friends. Thanks to the power of the forward button I got many more responses than I hoped. Below is the five quick questions I asked with the intention of justifying my own position on the subject matter:
1. When dealing with design variations (at a conceptual or development level) do you work on the same file or create a new file and keep the other versions for reference?
2. Do you ever find yourself searching for information in a current project or an older one?
If so what do you normally end up doing to find this information? (eg. ask everyone nearby and then give up)
3. How do you track the hours that you've worked on a project (manually, Excel file, Outlook, special program)?
4. Does your office share digital files with clients/contractors and if so are these files specially prepared or copies of your working files?
5. When dealing with digital files (CAD/images/documents) what backup method do you employ? (if you don't know that's fine)
Findings
Thanks to the email forwarding tool I received many more replies than I originally envisioned from a range of architecture practices not only in Wellington but around New Zealand. Fortunately the answers I received were satisfyingly similar. They were satisfying in the sense that it proved to myself that my personal assumptions acquired through experience in the industry were correct plus most were very similar which meant drawing generalized conclusions was relatively easy.
1. Design Variations
Design variations were handled in generally the same manner but applied slightly differently across the different practices. In general a new version of the design (CAD) file is created when a major design change takes place. Whether this new file was archived or worked on as the current project file varied greatly. No respondents used any of the variation options available within the CAD programes (or a third party versioning system). All kept their variation system simple and many smaller variations were proposed within the same file (with the design details dated). Folder structure in this process is very important in most of the practices as it provides the primary means of distinguishing different projects, concept/development and sometimes even design variations.2. Searching for Information
When it came to searching for information scouring print documentation was identified as being the easiest and most commonly used avenue for researching. In some cases old information was not kept onsite which made locating old design information very difficult. Other people in the office were the most valuable resource, generally if the user could not find an answer within the current working document other people in the office related to the project were questioned before any further searching took place.3. Time Tracking
The most obvious finding was that Excel is used extensively to track time spent on projects. Excel is arguably one of the biggest scourges in any IT environment. It is widely used by people for a variety of uses but as far as sharing, searching or managing this data the Excel solution is highly problematic.4. Information Sharing
File sharing between organisations was a common practice. Many exchanged raw CAD files (usally in dwg format) whilst others exported to a neutral, change resistant format such as PDF before sending to a third party. In most situations, especially where a special export file was generated, a copy of the exchanged file was kept locally for future reference.5. Data Backups
Backups were undertaken at least weekly if not daily. Many Practices backed their data up to CD (which is a highly unreliable backup medium) whilst a few trusted this task to a third party tape/hard drive solution. In these instances if an archived file was required the third party would need to be contacted in order to retrieve the required file from the archive.The informal survey confirmed my assumptions regarding several IT practices in Wellington's architecture community. Comparing these findings to the discussions on the NZIA email discussion list it would be relatively safe to assume these processes are very similar to those in use around New Zealand.