Platforms - your Excellence Enablers
Without platforms, all you get is wet.
"All our metrics showing that we're doing pretty good." But how good are your metrics - not against past standards, but leading-edge standards?
We are limited far less by the limits of our tools than by the limits of our understanding of our tools.
And platforms are the most empowering, most complex and least optimized tier of tools.
Platform Mastery
Our platforms are designed to support today’s best practices and tomorrow’s. But many remain entrenched in Yesterday’s practices and mindsets.
Why?
- Complexity. Complexity is always an adoption, optimization and quality challenge.
- Heads-downness? The sheer grind of meeting deadlines (perhaps worsened by using yesterday’s practices). "We're too busy to be better!"
- Periphery. We tend to learn from our required core outward. We are most brilliant and efficient in our core. Our performance and compensation tends to be weighted towards the core. "Speeding the core" is the obvious focus. The periphery is fuzzy.
- The unknown. Engineers enjoy learning, but direct, clear, and full-applicable learning (on the job, we're driven by direct utility). An unguided labyrinth kills the perceived ROI. Nobody, particularly engineers, likes a dead end.
- Integration. A lot of the improvements to workflows occur at the periphery, the handoffs, the interstices (or chasms) between Expertise Silos.
- Training and Learning Resources for peripheral and integrated solutions tend to be sparse and less directly applicable. Way too much interpretation outside our expertise.
In our manual transmission Porsche 911 (993), we're using only a foot and never our right hand. First gear is actually pretty fast if you don't know any better.
The spatial Data Environments are converging to greater Commonality (yay!). The data platforms (.dgn, .dwg) are fairly mature, with extensive capabilities built in to a familiar interface.
The ongoing Digital Integration Revolution aims for a "platform-less" consumability. Consumers and Collaborators(!) need only a web browser - a transformative goal, an actual revolution.
But the platforms that enable and manage "platform-less" are heavy.
Decades ago ProjectWise was for the long-haulers, the heavyweights - DOTs, MegaCorps. Today it's for everyone with a large project. And while today ProjectWise in primarily used as a file collaboration server - everyone with the same software and workspace - tomorrow's collaboration will be widely heterogeneous. Bentley Infrastructure Cloud and Autodesk Construction Clouds are the platforms designed to support ultra-wide consumability and heterogeneous participation.
How do we move our platform expertise from little things today to Big Things Tomorrow (today).
To get to the big things, you need:
- content expertise (the work, the client...)
- platform expertise
- integration expertise
- a business framework for adoption decisions (business opportunities, cost sharing strategies, how much investment with/without immediate return...)
- a framework for technical infrastructure implementation (costs, schedules, risk; infrastructure requirements)
- a framework for technical and workflow adoption by staff/client/project (training, support)
- criteria for project implementation (go/no-go)
Well-designed, future-ready platforms are our great enablers. They're here today. They're inescapable.
You can take advantage of their higher gears or you can continue to redline it in first.
It's a choice (and then a commitment (and then victory laps!).
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- Parent Category: Leadership
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The Fierce Urgency of Now
My Career Drivers
Innate
Love of Learning
Knowledge is Power. There is Safety in Power.
There is also comfort in that the world is orderly and that the orderliness can be known.
And the whole thing is grandly wonderous.
Compulsion to Serve
There's always been a need to be of service, of value.
Career
Utility/Application
Career is about application. What can you do for somebody?
What knowledge can you convert to valuable action?
Learn while you do (recursive). Apply!
Impact
Scale your effort.
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- Category: self
Oklahoma DOT - MicroStation & InRoads Migration
Project: MicroStation/InRoads Comprehensive Migration from MicroStation/J
Client: Oklahoma DOT (ODOT)
Prime Contractor: Bohannan Huston, Inc. (BHI)
Primary Collaborators: Janet Griffen (ODOT) and Brad Adams (BHI)
Work Scope: Precursory Education, Needs Assessment, Standards Development ("integers to names"), Software Setup
2002-2003
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The Bigs - Arguments for Fixing
Win More Work!
In the corporate race, we either grow or we die. So, business development is Job #1.
How do we do that? Differentiate from the competition. Deliver better. Focus on and invest in growth sectors.
In Transportation Design growth areas include: BIM/Digital Delivery, Digital Twins, The Full Digital Pipeline.
How do I help businesses win work?
I get them good at the project design and delivery infrastructure today. And help get them ready for tomorrow.
Customer service starts with the relationships, but then it's the deliverables. Do you give clients what they want? More than they want? Are you a Trusted Partner?
The design infrastructure comes in two platforms: AutoDesk and Bentley. That's it. You need to be very good at the platform your client demands. Better than your competitors.
Your Design Platform: How Good Are You?
The tools are set. They're not going away.
(60 seconds)
Are you going to really good early or sort of good later? Lead or follow?. Leadership earns more contracts!
Getting Good Costs the Same Early or Late. Why Wait?
Getting good costs the same whether you get good early or get good late. Why wait?
(36 seconds)
Business as Usual? These are HEAVY Platforms
OpenRoads is a heavy platform. It is layered. It's full of surprises. It's built for integration and live-updates - NOT for simplicity and speed.
OpenRoads Drainage is the heaviest design technical stack I've seen in 35+ years, and it's not even close.
It is not business as usual. Implementation and adoption is not business as usual.
(38 seconds)
Can you Adopt a Fat Platform on a Lean Project?
What does it take to get Competent? What does it take to get Good? How do you not blow up Project Budgets?
How much and when?
(62 seconds)
You want to be strategic about how you implement.
You may not fully build out your plan, but you definitely need to plan out your plan.
How much work do you have now/soon? How much more do you expect to win? How critical is this client? Is the platform broad? If you're asking if you should learn OpenRoads if your clients are largely DOTs, that's an easy answer: Yes! A more nuanced question is "when should I prepare to adopt OpenRoads Drainage when it's not explicitly required yet?"
I help organizations get really good with the platform.
Fix Your Macros!
You can fix your Micros, but you absolutely need to evaluate your Macros - your Big Systems, your BIg Multipliers.
I've seen money spent on fixing little things, when Big Multipliers are grossly neglected.
- The micro might be teaching formal classes or developing effective self-study training courses (lean!).
- The macro is XLr8ing your implementation, adoption, and expertise-sharing systems - in scalable and, ultimately, self-sustaining systems
(73 seconds)
What are your biggest Macros? Your Biggest Multipliers?
- Communications (manageable and harvestable expertise-sharing systems (peer-to-peer and expert-to-expert))
- Your internal Learning and expertise-sharing Systems
How: enhance your default standard (Sharepoint, most likely) or build an integrated custom (it's not particularly expensive or difficult)
(150 important seconds)
Do you want to do Slow Over and Over or Awesome Over and Over?
A final argument (final on this page anyway): what we do, we do over and over and and over and over...
Only by sharing your expertise broadly and quickly will you ensure that you are working Awesomely.
(110 seconds)
What I've done: What I've Done
Quick Links: YouTube Channel JeffMartinPE | My Resume | About this web
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Connect Design Empower
I'm at an interesting point in my career.
I'm past the point of experimentation. I know what I value, and I know my value:
Connect. Design to Empower. Serve.
I'm good at this. I'll never waver from it. I don't want to. I don't think I can.
Connecting is Step 1. You serve best when you know who you serve and what their needs are. There are myriad tools to facilitate Connection.
Prioritizing is Step 2. What do you prioritize? Growth Opportunities.
Recognizing Adjacent Opportunities is Step 3. Low hanging fruit. What do you already know that you can easily apply to make a difference?
I'm most inspired by this ongoing Integration Revolution - the most exciting time I've seen in 35 years in our industry.
It's more than just the lessening of paper at the DOT level - it's Integrated Project Delivery, it's Digital Construction Delivery, it's Digital Twins, it's Reality Modeling.
It's the end of Siloed Value. The end of the Waste Cycle of: finding it, organizing it, using it - and then abandoning it.
I want to be a part of driving this revolution: http://drivetherevolution.net/
This Integration Revolution is also a huge growth opportunity for companies. More service to existing clients; more clients.
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Driven to Drive Innovation
Our past shapes us all.
I grew up with my dad running his own General Construction Company (I also grew up with my brother and I as his ever-available full-gamut laborers).
Homes, subdivisions, office parks.
Recessions. Retreats. Rebuilds.
Decades-long high-impact high-stakes entrepreneurship.
A family business. A business family.
Nature and Nurture.
Civil Engineering was an logical extension of my upbringing.
My first job was for a for three-person Survey and Engineering Design office (The Owner/Principal Engineer, an Engineer four years my senior, and me). We did it all, from Topo Surveys to running the design plans down to the airport for the contractor. Effort with clear direct impact.
As the economy was shrinking, we even got on the phone cold-calling developers.
Founding my own business was inevitable. Nature/Nurture.
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Drainage Engineering
I had a consulting manager at Bentley say to me once, "I had no idea that you knew roadway." I KNOW Roadway really well, but when I'm pulled from my Bentley "day job" to provide consulting services, it's for drainage "hot projects" or to consult with leadership teams to plan OpenRoads Drainage Implementations.
I think I defensively answered "I'm roadway first" (because Bentley Civil is roadway first), but upon reflection I'm not sure that holds up to scrutiny. In the three-way split between Roadway, Site, and Drainage Engineering, Drainage does, in fact, get the edge.
I may be the same sized Big Fish, but the Pond of Drainage Experts is much smaller than the Great Lake of Roadway Experts.
OpenRoads Drainage (currently called "Drainage and Utlities") is a full implementation of StormCAD and CivilStorm within the OpenRoads Designer environment. I've been deeply involved in its development and rollout since its early days at Bentley. The Product Manager and I developed most of the training (until recently when I moved to promoting all Engineering Applications).
After getting a full complement of Drainage Training published, I started with Virginia DOT extensively. I developed additional training material per their needs and delivered multiple weeks of training at their headquarters and regional offices. I worked with hydraulic managers to address their concerns (they were less about the software than being able to assure the quality of projects submitted by staff and consultants. StormCAD and CivilStorm are considerably more sophisticated than the software they were replacing. We worked to develop customizations of in-software tools to help flag issues and automate review).
I most recently spent weeks with the Hydraulic Leads at ALDOT, TxDOT, OrDOT, and WSDOT, and a top 5 Design Company going over details of the product's spatial and hydraulic capabilities and how to meet their detailed design criteria (see The Surprise Barrier to OpenRoads Drainage Acceptance).
The last drainage course I authored prior to my current position was Placing a Ditch and Culvert Networks. A direct result of writing that course is a series of enhancements to the software to allow easy layout of ditches whether the terrain reflects the ditch or not. This is an example of where the code was sufficient for "standalone" Haestad workflows, but required enhancements because of the level of spatial accuracy one expects in the OpenRoads BIM/Digital Twin-ready modeling environment.
This is actually a major consideration when implementing OpenRoads Drainage: because you can be extremely accurate spatially (even photorealistically), how much do you let that capacity "distract" you from your contracted deliverables. There is a tendency to chase spatial perfection even though it is not required hydraulically or even contractually. What is the balance? Balancing this question is especially true for agencies setting up their standards.
I've worked on multi-discipline, live-collaboration Mega-Projects both in OpenRoads Drainage (US-183 in Austin, TX) and in Civil 3D Storm&Sanitary Analysis (JFK Airport Redevelopment)
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What I've Done
What skills and attitudes drive me to your success?
- My dad built businesses (and subdivisions and office parks).
- My first job as an EIT was with a three-person office. We surveyed, designed, and staked out. I even cold-called developers seeking work (thank you, Recession 1990-1991).
- Packed up and left Florida for a three-month consulting contract in San Diego. Turned into a five-year engagement.
- Founded Civil XLr8 to “Go National”. Not wanting to hire staff, I instead took a local job at CalTrans, before ultimately working directly for Bentley Systems for 13 years.
Upon sending my kid off to college, I restarted Civil XLr8.
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To maximize firmwide uplift, it starts with your communication systems.
Your communications systems must
- maximize the scalability of your value and
- maximize the synergy of your people.
It should be
- Manageable from the top
- Engaging across the base
- Value-Harvestable
- Manageable and Managed
Those in need must be able to find what they need when they need it.
- Just Enough, Just in Time, at their Fingertips
How do we do this better? Are our limitations valid? Do we really have to wait?
Tools. I'm happiest when I'm bringing order to chaos (see The Six-Ball Juggle). Some processes are near impossible without tools that simplify them. Engineers can work wonders with a spreadsheet, but at some point they themselves get too complex and breakable (without reliable ways to tell if they're broken). If I could make a living programming, I'd do it. My scope is different.
I have freely published some software programs.
- FlowMonster is/was a hydraulic normal depth calculator that the City of San Diego used for over twenty years - saving them hundred(s) of thousands of dollars.
- Ini Manager - I wrote this so to make the InRoads enterprise-wide Standards Management possible. Community Involvement (and Quality Practices in general) require contribution to be easy - or it fails.
I tend not to program anymore, but I do customize XSL/T reports. OpenRoads Configuration/Administration is complex to the point of absurdity - and the primary way to review in bulk (and import/export for mass manipulation) is via Exporting/Importing XML files. XSL/T transforms to and from those standard formats into formats you can actually use.
Innovative Communication. There is nothing really innovative in using websites to communicate. Except in managing civil engineering projects. We tend not to do that. The first project I used a website to educate the stakeholders about the decisions they would be making and the results of our discussion was Oklahoma DOT - MicroStation & InRoads Migration). Amazing results and surprise contributions from across the state (because they had access to all the information). Today I document as I go; I can provide instantaneous access to all project stakeholders: Fast, Lean, Secure Project Websites
Agile Implementations made possible by Constant Communication (Live documentation)
Vision and Effective Communication are critical to moving organizations. I led the City of San Diego's Engineering Application Services programs in the late 1990s. I led the technical aspects of Oklahoma DOTs migration from MicroStation/J and InRoads to v8. I have designed training programs for large corporations. I have helped shape expectations and culture. I have consistently improved communication and sought to develop a culture of Uplift Everybody and Shared Expertise. I know the value of injecting energy and instilling confidence.
US-183 North Mobility Project, Austin, TX, $612 million. Drainage Modeling and Sheeting in OpenRoads Drainage and Utilities on ProjectWise. Parsons Corp.
JFK International Airport Redevelopment Program, New York. $1.24 billion. Drainage Modeling and Design using Civil 3D/SSA on AutoDesk Construction Cloud.
Valley Line West - Edmonton Light Rail (Utilities) in Edmonton, Alberta. Subsurface Utilities using OpenRoads Drainage and Utilities on ProjectWise.
- I made extensive use of ORD BIM capabilities, integrating data from disparate sources into the utilities data model.
- I then used View Display Rule technology (my favorite new platform tech behind Item Types) to streamline the review process. In-project ROI!
- Watch The Six-Ball Juggle for my thoughts on simplifying complex processes.
Drainage/hydraulics has been the most ever-present discipline in my career. Fresh out of school designing and permitting drainage systems in rainy Central Florida.
In what would be typical throughout my career, deep drainage experience in the Roadway Software ecosystem (InRoads, GEOPAK, Civil 3D, OpenRoads) means you're most valuable leading in that role. At Intergraph, I helped develop the algorithms for full-flow/surcharged HGL calculations (this was before HEC-22). Even most recently, when added to Multi-discpline Mega Projects, my expertise is more rare and valued in the Drainage and Utilities realm than in the roadway scope (a video perspective).
The OpenRoads Drainage and Utilities software is really two complicated technology verticals grafted together. Elite expertise in BOTH those verticals is rare. My career has largely been about intergrating those two verticals (and otherwise blurring barriers).
Drainage Engineering: a summary
Intergraph Corporation: While primarily focused on InFlow (drainage) and InSewer (sanitary) development, certification and support, InRoads was the Civil behemoth. It’s impossible to work the periphery without a good competency of the core. I also certified the InSpan (bridge) software package.
- Highway Interchange Design: I-4/Conroy, Rural Highway Design, Bridge Geometry support (HNTB Orlando).
- Foothill Transportation Corridor - South Alignment Studies with full templates and complicted end-conditions. (PBS&J, Irvine)
- I-15 Managed Lanes Direct Access Ramp geometry modeling and drainage (CalTrans).
- I-805 Managed Lanes (Kimley-Horn, San Diego).
Highway Engineering: my history.
I started my career with a full-services Topo-to-Stakeout Site Engineering company. A PE, an EIT and me. Lots of responsibility right away.
- Job 1: Full project responsibility early site engineering including drainage in very rainy Florida (Spring Creek Square - 30-acre shopping center working directly with the developer and contractor).
- Job 2: Site and drainage design and permitting for Orange County Public Schools Improvement programs
- Job 3: Intergraph InSite certification lead.
- Site grading course design at Bentley, including InRoad, the InRoads (GEOPAK)Site Modeler import/graft, and first OpenRoads Site Grading Courses.
- Here's some valuable training on grading: CivilHelp.com: Site and Drainage Grading
First Job: On the rod or the Leitz Set 2 for topo or stakeout surveys.
Most currently, agency-level configuration of OpenRoads Survey, including Custom Operations and Annotation setup and import/process QC.
Quick Links: YouTube Channel JeffMartinPE | My Resume | About this web
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Professional Experience
Civil XLr8 (the Connect Edition)
As much as I was enjoying banging on Civil3D (and its Hydraulic extensions), it was clear that I was never going to be truly bi-lingual. I'm happy to have had a deep dive back in the other half of the duopoly, but Bentley solutions is my home. It was time to resurrect Civil XLr8.
I've been doing a lot of workspace development (particulary Survey, Sheet Seed development, Annotation - filling in subscopes I had neglected), some training, and business development (see CivilXLr8.com).
My primary focus in the Bentley Ecosystem is helping organizations grow by adopting better practices and broadening internal and peripheral integration with the tools they already own. The greater efficiency and expanded services footprint = succe$$.
Parsons Corporation (2021-2023)
In November 2021, I accepted a position at Parsons Corporation as a Supervising Drainage Engineer. My goal was to get back into industry that had changed so much in the thirteen years I had been watching a remote vantage point at Bentley (involved, but not embedded).
Parsons is known for their expertise in Multi-Discipline Live-Collaboration MegaProjects.
I worked on these MegaProjects
- US-183 North Mobility Project, Austin TX: ProjectWise-Managed Roadway&Drainage Rehabilitation. I worked Drainage using OpenRoads Drainage and Utilities software.
- Edmonton Light Rail Transit, Valley Line West, Edmonton, Alberta: Light Rail Extension through downtown Edmonton. I worked modeling existing and new Subsurface Utilities using ORD Drainage and Utilities. Note this is absolutely a subdiscipline where moving chaotically-source data to the (extended) OpenRoads Data Model (Item Types) yields huge benefits in schedule, cost and quality. Utilities is so well-suited for OpenRoads BIM and Digital Twins capability.
- JFK Airport Redevelopment, New York: Multi-discipline $19 billion project. I worked drainage modeling and design in Civil3D, SSA, AutoDesk Construction Cloud and supporting programs.
Other opportunities at Parsons included
- Leading the drainage portion of a phase of a $570M highway expansion project bid (which we one). FAST detailed modeling for estimates! (It seems that the Construction firms are in an arms race to fully model a project so that they can get really precise estimates. This really increases the costs of bidding.)
- Using Teams to share new Best Practices for OpenRoads Drainage
Bentley Systems (2008-2021)
Prior to being recruited to join Bentley Systems in 2008, half of my career had been responsible engineering design and half had been developing training, implementing and training InRoads and InRoads Drainage (Storm&Sanitary). Half had been as an employee, half had been as a self-employed consultant.
My role at Bentley initially had been to extend our Training Content available for InRoads and then later to transform how we delivered training: to facilitate remote OnDemand Learning.
Additional major Learning System responsibilities included rolling out OpenRoads Technology, incorporating the Haestad (OpenFlows) drainage software, on-site training and consulting, and managing the Civil Content Development Team.
My current role at Bentley is Blueprints Portfolio Manager for the Design Integration Products (these include the OpenRoads, OpenPlant, OpenBuildings, STAAD/RAM product families and the MicroStation Platform). Our goal is to transform how the spectrum of value - from short job-aids through large Consulting projects - are consumed by Bentley users. Our goal is to dramatically facilitate the consumption of training and consulting - similar to how we transformed the delivery of training from Instructor-required to OnDemand self-service.
I have a Bentley page with more detail.
Please see sub-menus under Experience for discipline summaries and highlights, like
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Innovation - Walking the Walk
"Innovation is our Differentiator"
Are you driving it or are you merely hoping for it?
When selling services, from the individual level all the way up to the MegaProject level, there are a couple different marketing strategies:
- "We will help you make more money by helping you with your current core business."
- "We will help you make more money by helping you expand your business."
Offer your clients something your competitors don't (innovation): the ability to offer their clients a differentiator (innovation!).
"Innovation" can differentiate both the quality of service and the perception of those services.
But...
is your innovation a lingering legacy or are you committed to a culture of Innovation?
Do your services inspire a Culture of Innovation?
Does your Culture change Culture?
You've talked the Innovation talk, are you walking the Innovation walk?
You have Innovators on your staff. You have "uplifters" on your staff.
Can your innovators innovate?
Can you uplifters lift up?
Does your culture empower them or does your culture inhibit them?
It starts with your business model.
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