19650 review: the major project perspective part 1
14 April 2026
19650 is changing: are we ready for what it’s asking us?
14 April 2026
The draft revisions to ISO 19650 not only bring the standard up to date, but push it on to where the industry needs to go next. Amodal MD Tom Whiting shares his feedback on the revisions and asks if the industry is ready.
We chose to respond to the proposed changes to ISO 19650 because they reflect a moment of reset for the industry. Many organisations have worked hard to adopt BIM over the past decade, often navigating complex language, inconsistent interpretations and, at times, a sense of fatigue with the terminology itself. What’s encouraging in this revision is that it feels closer to where the industry now is and where it needs to go next.
This is not about new acronyms or relabelling familiar concepts. It is about making information management more accessible, more consistent, and ultimately more valuable in practice. If the standard can help shift the focus away from compliance for its own sake towards genuine adoption and better outcomes, then it will have done something meaningful for the sector.
Terminology: catching up with what was always meant
Much of the early discussion around the proposed revision has focused on the terminology changes: BIM becomes IM, the BEP becomes the IPP, the EIR becomes the IPR, and the TIDP and MIDP are consolidated into the IPS. These are welcome corrections, but the attention they have received is itself revealing. If your reading of ISO 19650 was that it was fundamentally about models, you were always missing the point. The standard has been an information management framework from the outset. The revised terminology simply makes that harder to misread.
The practical caveat is that we work to contract. A revised standard does not rewrite existing appointments or retrain supply chains overnight. Projects commencing today will still operate against BEPs, EIRs and TIDPs for years. The terminology improvement is real, but its effect on live projects will be gradual. The more important changes sit elsewhere in the revision.
Lifecycle: the change that actually matters
Behind the terminology headlines sits a more substantive shift. The proposed revision removes the distinction between the delivery phase and the operational phase, and in doing so, it reframes the fundamental question that information management is meant to answer. This should arguably have been done sooner, but the consolidation of what were previously Parts 2 and 3 into a single lifecycle framework brings a clarity the sector has needed.
“For far too long, the handover phase is represented as the finish line in a long race to the end. Instead, the requirements and production of information is an ever-evolving and persisting outcome that must result in a validated and immutable suite of live information about the asset.”
Tom Whiting
Not “what information do we need to complete this scheme?”, but “what information does this asset need to exist and operate across its entire life?”
That reframing is significant. It positions the asset information model not as a deliverable at the end of a project but as the destination that the whole information management process is designed towards from the outset. Start with the end in mind is not a new idea in our sector, but the standard is now codifying it as the default position.
This places greater expectations on asset owners and operators. Under the revised approach, they carry greater responsibility for planning the information they actually need before a project begins, and for ensuring that changes to the asset across its operational life are systematically captured and maintained. Both represent genuine capability gaps for many organisations in the built environment today.
That is not a criticism of the revision. It is an observation about the gap between what the standard is now pointing to and where much of the sector currently sits. Closing that gap is important work, and it starts with owners being clear about what they need from information, not just from construction.
What we’re watching: enabling technologies and the UK Annex
The draft is notably explicit that no single technology is likely to be sufficient to deliver on all of the standard’s principles, particularly on large or complex projects. That is a measured and important observation, and one the sector needs to sit with.
There is a persistent narrative in the built environment around the golden thread and the single source of truth, phrases that imply all information should live in one place. In practice, information exists across different systems, at different states of maturity, serving different purposes. That is not a failure of implementation. It is how projects (and notably complex ones) work. The revision brings greater clarity to this reality rather than pretending it away.
“It will be interesting to see whether ‘common data environment’ eventually gives way to something like ‘common data ecosystem’ – a term that better reflects the reality of multiple systems working together rather than a single platform doing everything. The language matters, because it shapes how clients procure and how the supply chain responds.”
Tom Whiting
Part of the challenge is that most people in the sector think of a CDE as a single solution, but what they are usually describing is an electronic document management system. A CDE, as the standard defines it, is an agreed set of processes, technologies and governance, not a single platform. That distinction matters, because misunderstanding it leads to procurement decisions that are too narrow and technology strategies that cannot scale to meet lifecycle obligations. The industry may need to take one step back in how it thinks about enabling technologies in order to take two steps forward in how it implements them.
We are also watching how the UK Annex evolves alongside the main standard. The national annex has historically done important work in translating ISO 19650 principles into UK procurement practice, the Building Safety Act’s golden thread obligations, and the requirements of publicly funded infrastructure. As the revised standard dissolves the delivery-operational boundary, the UK Annex will need to do corresponding work in bridging these principles to the contractual and regulatory landscape that UK projects actually operate within.
The direction is right
The direction of travel is right: simpler terminology, a whole-lifecycle orientation and greater honesty about how enabling technologies actually work. These are things the sector genuinely needed the standard to say, and the consultation process is an opportunity to shape how they are said.
A revised standard is a reference point, not a switch. Its influence comes gradually, through how it shapes the next generation of appointments, procurement frameworks, education and tooling. With time, the industry will respond, and the standard will continue to evolve for the better.
We will continue to advocate for the principles behind these changes in our practice. We encourage our clients, supply chains and industry partners to engage with the consultation process and to begin the internal conversations about lifecycle information planning that this revision is, in effect, asking everyone to have.
The deadline for feedback on the 19650 review is 3 May. Read the draft of the revised Part 1. Read the draft of the revised Part 2.
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