Digital delivery is not about tools — it’s about how information is organised

For a long time, I believed that better tools would naturally lead to better project outcomes.

Standardised Revit setups.
Predefined view templates.
Pre-built families.
More automation every year.

On the surface, this looked like digital delivery done right.

But after working across multiple projects, I realised something different:
good tools don’t improve delivery if the information inside them isn’t structured with intent.

When tools get stronger, but teams get more tired

On one project I worked on, the tool ecosystem was solid:

• Worksets clearly defined

• View templates pre-configured

• Families created and standardised

• Some workflows automated

From a checklist perspective, everything looked “correct”.

Yet in reality:

• Coordination still took longer than expected

• Reviews required repeated clarification

• Downstream teams kept asking questions about things that were supposedly “clear”

The team wasn’t struggling with geometry.
They were struggling with interpretation.

Questions like:

• What is this information intended to be used for?

• Is it reliable enough to make a decision, or only indicative?

• At this stage, how much trust should I place in it?

In some teams, it went even further.

Junior team members worked with anxiety,
constrained by strong rules that had been defined,
but without understanding why those rules existed in the first place.

Rules without context don’t support delivery.
They create silent pressure.

Tools don’t think — they store decisions

Tools don’t understand intent.
They don’t understand context.
They don’t understand who will consume the information later.

A tool can only store and present what someone has already decided to put into it.

If the person creating the model hasn’t clearly defined:

• the purpose of the information

• its level of completeness

• its intended audience

then the next person is forced to guess.

And everyone guesses differently — based on experience, role, and pressure.

At that point, the issue is no longer Revit, templates, or automation.
It’s a gap in thinking between information creators and information users.

How my view of digital delivery changed

I stopped asking:

“How can we make the model smarter?”

And started asking:

“Who is this information for, at which stage, and with what level of confidence?”

Answering those three questions removed the need for many heavy rules —
and made some tools unnecessary.

• Not every view needs to be complex

• Not every element needs early detailing

• Not every process needs automation

What matters is the right information, in the right place, at the right level.

Organising information is organising decision flow

In a project, not everyone needs everything.

Engineers, modellers, coordinators, and downstream teams
all consume information differently.

Digital delivery is not about putting everything into one model.
It’s about structuring information so each role sees what they need — with context attached.

When that happens:

• Fewer questions

• Fewer misunderstandings

• Less personal stress

And most importantly,
people work with a sense of safety —
not because mistakes disappear,
but because boundaries are clear.

I don’t believe in “perfect systems”

I believe in systems that:

• have clear intent

• define their limits

• accept that not everything needs to be digitised immediately

Digital delivery isn’t about showing how much we can do.
It’s about reducing unnecessary decisions for others.

Closing thought

Tools will continue to evolve.
Revit today won’t be Revit five years from now.

But the way we structure information and communicate its context matters far more.

When done well, digital delivery doesn’t just improve projects —
it makes work cognitively lighter for the people involved.

And to me,
that’s the real value of digital delivery.