The BIM Technician in 2025 with Josip Bandur

Andrea Ciaffi

Hi Joseph. Welcome to the Digital Construction podcast. How are you today?

Josip Bandur

Andrea, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here today.

Andrea Ciaffi

So in this episode with it, we sit down with Joseph Bandur. We'll probably also talk about the pronunciation of his name and his origin, but Joseph is currently a beam leader at measure engineering, but he has spent about 20 years of his careers at Cardinal and then Arcadis.

Andrea Ciaffi

We'll talk about the often overlooked realities of digital delivery from drawing standard to technician culture, leadership, disconnects and burnout. Joseph is going to share with us a rare and honest view from the trenches of our beam projects are delivered. I'm very excited about this project today, but before we start Joseph, I have a nice breaker for you.

Andrea Ciaffi

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received in your career?

Josip Bandur

Best piece would be be authentic. Be yourself. What we learn throughout our careers is that this industry of ours is very small. Everybody knows everybody in a certain way.

Andrea Ciaffi

Mm-hmm.

Josip Bandur

So just being yourself makes it a lot easier for you to maintain that persona that you want out in industry. That's number one. Number two is adaptability and modelling for change. As we know, things change all the time, being adaptable and being able to move with the project life cycle is super important.

Josip Bandur

And then I guess. Yeah, that's probably. That's probably the two main ones I would say throughout the throughout my time.

Andrea Ciaffi

That's a very good one. And for those who follow Joseph on LinkedIn, you can see how opinionated you are about certain topics, so I'm very excited to have to have a chat with you about this topic. But before we start, Joseph, can you can you start telling us a little bit about your career journey?

Andrea Ciaffi

LED you to work in the construction space and some of the key projects you've been involved in.

Josip Bandur

Sure. Well, as you can tell, my name isn't very Australian name. My parents are Croatian migrants. My dad was a renderer on a residential construction sites. So from the age of about 12, I used to mix cement.

Josip Bandur

With him on school holidays weekends, so to a certain extent I was always probably going to be in the construction industry to, you know, as a labourer or as a Carpenter or something like that. But during school I went to. A engineering firm for a couple of weeks there and really enjoyed myself there, so I was never really good at school.

Josip Bandur

I didn't do terribly well on the math side and all that sort of stuff, so I know I knew I couldn't be an engineer to a certain extent, but I started doing. The civil engineering diploma at TAFE got into there really enjoyed drawing because we started on the board actually in in those early days of TAFE.

Josip Bandur

So the first six months you spent your time on the board drawing documentation, learning how to put drawings together, understanding different concepts. Around where things go and how they are placed with inside of those things and that sort of triggered me to go.

Josip Bandur

I think this is what I want to do. I got very lucky in that a friend of mine got a cadet ship at Alexander Brown in Cambridge. As a civil cadet drafter a couple of months later, they were looking for a structural cadet drafter.

Josip Bandur

I applied. I got that job and to a certain extent that that was what history wrote. I ended up Cardinal board Alexander Brown and Cambridge after I think three years. I was at Cardinal for 21 years, spent most of the majority of my time there.

Josip Bandur

One of the lucky things about working at Cardinal was that I got exposed to a lot of different sectors within the engineering industry, so I did. Not just vertical infrastructure of all sorts of types, but horizontal infrastructure as well. So I've spent a lot of my time doing hospitals, education, health, correctional facilities, even in the water space.

Josip Bandur

And then started doing bridges tunnels as well. Spent six years on the legacy way tunnel here in Brisbane, which was probably one of my most favourite JV's that I ever worked on. I miss the early development of Revit during that time, which might have been a blessing in disguise.

Josip Bandur

But I think all those sort of attributes with inside that time probably developed me and under a lot of mentorship within the people within those organisations. Has helped me to be the probably the person that I am today. Cardinal got bought out by Stantec.

Josip Bandur

I quickly found that Stantec wasn't probably going to be the place for me, and it was time for a change. I moved to Arcadis for a year. I love the Arcadis. The Arcadis was fantastic, great people. People that were willing to hear different perspectives take on different perspectives, which was amazing.

Josip Bandur

But an engineer that I used to work for for 10 years at Cardinal 10 plus years at Cardinal called me up one day and said, look, I'm starting at Brisbane office. Down at this small firm called Measure, I'm going. Who's measure? Never heard of him?

Josip Bandur

Any guys? I I need a guy that can do Revit and produce some projects for me. I knew his standard of delivery. I knew what he wanted. I knew how pedantic he is about delivering a certain quality of. Product and that excited me and scared me.

Josip Bandur

To even extent it's hard when you, I guess get brought up in a tier one sort of area for most of your career and then you're thinking about moving to something that is very different to that.

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

So I did make the jump. I've been here now, nearly two years. I think I said on one of my LinkedIn posts when I moved to measure after the first year. I said if you think you're good, move to a smaller firm and see how good you are and it does it.

Andrea Ciaffi

Ha ha.

Josip Bandur

It tests you in so many different ways. I think we all get a little bit comfortable in the budgets and the. Organisations and the amount of people that are there to be able to help you develop and deliver things. But when you break it all back down to the simplest of forms, can you do it then?

Josip Bandur

And that's that's where that adaptability

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

comes in.

Andrea Ciaffi

Well.

Josip Bandur

So yeah, that's a that's a bit of a brief of my 20 odd years so far.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, this is. This is amazing. Like I I like how you bring this

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

perspective of thinking about the larger company or the smaller companies and how things could be different and also your passion for the quality of drawings. And I'd like to start from the from the quality and. The state, or maybe somebody will say the decline of drawing standards.

Andrea Ciaffi

I just want to know from your from your point of view, what's the current state of drawing

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

standards and do you think it has slipped in recent years? Yeah.

Josip Bandur

Look, I don't think it's a question to be asked if it's slipped. Of course it has. Everybody says it, even if it's behind closed doors, we know it has. We're not doing much about it. We're just happy with what we have at the moment and.

Josip Bandur

That sort of. It's it's, it's a sad state of affairs. If we again if we break it all back down, drafting is a is is a craft. It really is an absolute craft. You go back to the days when the people are on the boards trying to put pen to paper.

Josip Bandur

Set things out, deliver projects back then. Now that's that's the true craft right there. Then we moved into sort of the AutoCAD 2D space days. I still think that there was a very much amount of people in that era that developed a great set of drawings because you still have to really think.

Josip Bandur

About what you were putting down on paper because you couldn't really see it in 3D, right? You still have to have perspectives and understand what you were trying to put down and deliver that and place it on in a certain way so that it could get constructed out on site.

Josip Bandur

I think now with. Pressures of delivery timelines, budgets. Even just 3D and the amount of changes that are allowable these days, I think everything just puts pressure on and the first thing to drop is quality.

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

There are definitely a bunch of other factors to that that we will go into later on. Within that but. We. There's a big emphasis currently on models.

Andrea Ciaffi

Mm-hmm.

Josip Bandur

Models are apparently the be all and end all. That's where all our data is stored and all that sort of stuff, but for me. At the end of the day, my delivery is APDF and the DWG doesn't matter. If I model doesn't matter the information inside that model like it's great for coordination with our other disciplines and all that sort of stuff.

Josip Bandur

But at the end of the day my contractorable deliverable is APDF and a DWG. Now I've got to try and make that as efficient as possible because of the constraints that we have, but I also will never. Go away from the quality of delivery first.

Josip Bandur

The quality is always the first thing that we look at and then does what we're doing affect that quality? If the answer is yes, we won't do it.

Josip Bandur

If the answer is no, but it speeds up the process and we just need to view things a little bit differently, I think that's where you find the benefits in Model 2 documentation presentation inside your and that's where you can find your benefits.

Josip Bandur

The issue we have in Australia, especially in the infrastructure space, is that our infrastructure bodies love to see a set of documentation a certain way and that certain way is usually what we're used to produce in CAD. Now if your mindset is I want to see exactly what we're used to produce in CAD.

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

I think you're going to struggle to deliver a project with the fundamentals of a great model and a great set of documentation because there's a lot of sidesteps that you need to take to be able to deliver those two standards together. So it's it's it's a fine balancing act between.

Josip Bandur

How can we show our information to not decrease the quality so you always have to constantly ask yourself? All right, I'm making an advancement here, but is that going to affect what we want to deliver? So you always got to keep asking yourself, will this affect the quality of the final deliverable that we are trying to achieve?

Josip Bandur

And it's not always easy. You always have a conversation with other engineer, with your engineers and your business managers and all that sort of stuff. And you, you tell them. Look, I'm not one to go forward and going backward or go backwards and going forwards.

Josip Bandur

I will tell them this will take longer, but what we're trying to do is make sure that we deliver a product and deliver the information in a way that if we keep doing this, it's going to take us even longer. So yes, I'm going to improve time here.

Josip Bandur

Now we can go that a step further, but in my eyes this will decrease quality.

Andrea Ciaffi

Mm-hmm.

Josip Bandur

And I asked them to make the decision on this is where I want to be. But if you want to just decrease the amount of information that you're going to deliver, then I'm happy to go here. But.

Josip Bandur

Let's just make sure that we are all happy with the product that we are delivering because at the end of the day, there are so many engineering firms now out, especially once you come down to this tier. There are so many small engineering firms out there.

Josip Bandur

The only thing that you can differentiate yourself from these days and it shouldn't be. Cost. It should be the quality of product that you produce. If you produce a quality of products, those clients will usually keep coming back to you.

Andrea Ciaffi

You know that's a great point of view. And what do you think that poor documentation like? Poor quality of documentation, impact, project delivery and collaboration? What's the negative of that? I know it sounds like an obvious questions, but I just want to know your point of view.

Josip Bandur

None. We there used to be a lot more thought early on on a project. They also used to be quite a large ramification on any chain. Major changes that used to be made within a project as well at different points within the life cycle.

Josip Bandur

The great. The great thing and the bad thing about now doing everything in 3D is that you can make changes very quickly and a lot of them.

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

The problem with that is like I said again our deliverable is a DWG and APDF. Now we can adjust the model very quickly, but that's not to say that the documentation. And we'll adjust just this quick. So so you can adjust that at Arcadis,

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah. Or the annotations, yeah.

Josip Bandur

Arcadis was fantastic in the civil infrastructure. I worked there mainly in civil infrastructure, you could build a bridge in an hour and a half like. They had a fantastic toolbar set and you could build a bridge very quickly, but then to produce the set of documentation that went with that bridge.

Josip Bandur

And then if the civil guys were to change the alignment of that bridge, yes, I could update that bridge modally. Very quickly, half an hour, whatever an hour, but all the documentation then goes a little bit array and that is where the

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

time now is spent. And that is why the quality is decreasing right as well. Because you look at it back in, when we used to produce, I guess CAD and drawing board drawings, the amount of detail sheets, the amount of section sheets, the amount of things we used to supply within that deliverable.

Josip Bandur

Was quite extensive, right? You used to have. You're doing a steel structured roof. You used to have 10 pages of steel details. Now you've got 2 pages of typical details and that's it, and and we'll let the steel guys, you know,

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

the steel fabricator work it out or something like that. I've always had this. I've had this conversation with people previously and I've said. At a more higher construction level, I said have your RFI's in the last five to 10 years increased or decreased?

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

And the answer is always increased. Now, in a world of BIM, collaboration, coordination and all this sort of stuff, why are RFI's increasing not decreasing

Andrea Ciaffi

By point.

Josip Bandur

that that is like, tell me somebody that says that RFI's have decreased. Nobody. I I haven't heard somebody say that they've decreased in their in their line of work. Our work is increasing, the amount of work that we do now is increasing. So everything put puts pressure on our deliverables.

Josip Bandur

Now you can't. You can't decrease the quality of design right at the end of the day, that structure needs to stand up. That is what is. That is the what is the of the highest, most importance. What can we decrease? And this is probably how managers look at it, right?

Josip Bandur

What can we decrease? Well, I don't need to do those 10 bespoke

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

details. You know they can work it out on site, but that's 10 extra artifies for the engineer later down the track. And so over the years we've started decreasing the amount of documentation, the amount of detailing, the amount of information we provide in those stages.

Josip Bandur

And then they go all into that construction phase, which then increases the work. With Rfis and the engineers on site and all that sort of stuff. So it's just a continual flow on effect of. I think it's easy for. US technicians don't have a lot of I say it.

Josip Bandur

People within influence, right? So we're the easy ones to go. I don't need you to do that,

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

which is great to a certain extent for us, but we also get, we also need to. We also need to deliver without us. Those drawings don't go out. You don't have a package to deliver. Your design does not get. You know,

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Josip Bandur

I've told her. We joke in the office. We said I'm just going to walk out and you deliver your blue beam so you don't need me anymore. And like that. Look, that's never going to happen. That's why this whole automation and they and they're like a technical.

Josip Bandur

A good technician's role will always be useful, no matter what the issue is that that skill set is disappearing and disappearing very quickly, and that's that's the that's that's sort

Andrea Ciaffi

MMM.

Josip Bandur

of where we are. We are currently at.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, I really want to expand on this technician's role and maybe technician culture, like,

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

what does technician culture means to you, and why do you think it's important?

Josip Bandur

Technicians are the backbone to everything that we do. At the end of the day, we are the ones that will deliver your design in a way that is able to be constructible, doesn't matter if we're just producing a model or we're producing documentation.

Josip Bandur

A technician's role is. Yeah. Look, peep, there's engineers now doing a technician's role, right? You see, they go. Oh, our, our engineers are in Revit now. They're producing, and I'm like, and I talked to engineers, and I go. Did you go to uni for four years to be a technician?

Josip Bandur

Their answer is always no. That is the last thing they want to do. They want to design, they want to create, they want to use that knowledge that they have to be able to construct sustainable and lean structures and quality structures, right? They don't want to be stuck there doing the documentation around around.

Josip Bandur

Around that, that's what technicians are for, and then the technician's role is if you love what you do is to produce a quality like, there's a reason why I haven't gone into bin management. It's because I love. I love producing a set of documentation.

Josip Bandur

If I lost that. I think I'd probably retire or I'd find something completely different to. Do you really need to love what you do and you really need to have a passion for it to be able to produce a quality set of documentation.

Josip Bandur

The problem is that that love and passion around the industry, especially around technicians, is getting suppressed because of the delivery pressures and all that sort of stuff that we have.

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

And so therefore it's either all the great technicians around my generation have all gone into bin management bin coordination. Probably never delivered a set of drawings in the last four to five years, or they just completely left and gone. Done something else.

Josip Bandur

So it's. And that's why we have sort of this now gap in our industry in that we have a lot of people at a very low level. We have a few in that sort of upper mid range, but that experience now to train the the up and coming people is just not there anymore.

Josip Bandur

So yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, this is a common common concern from multiple companies. I'm hearing this everywhere like it's a

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

it's a real problem we are facing. We'll talk about that later because I

Josip Bandur

Yeah. Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

know you have an opinion about This is why this is happening.

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

But before we get there, yeah.

Josip Bandur

But like just to just to add on your comment right there, right, we know it's a conversation being had with inside a lot of companies, right? The problem is that it's happening with inside those companies and not outside of

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

those kind of like it's usually behind closed doors, it's usually behind. Where you're not going to hear it like the perception is that we are all one team, great environment, all this sort of stuff. But in behind you're going. How am I supposed to deliver that in two days or three?

Josip Bandur

Like like there there is, there is an internal battle in every single company. If they'd like to say it or not, it's just how you sort of go about that to deliver and and what's your principles and base outcome is going to be with inside your project delivery.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, we'll talk about the reasons of why this is happening, because I feel like you have a strong opinion. I want to ask you, you touched on this fast-paced project environment and the pressure that we have to deliver projects. But from your point of view, how can technicians preserve this pride

Josip Bandur

Yep.

Andrea Ciaffi

in the craft that you refer to, even in this environment, that's quite challenging sometimes.

Josip Bandur

I don't know. I the I think the honest answer is I

Andrea Ciaffi

MMM.

Josip Bandur

don't know in the current environment in delivery and how it is structured. Again, I talk about people with influence, right? The technicians aren't the people with influence. It's all the people. There's many rows above that before you get a perception of influence. You always you companies will always choose one of the two PS profitable people and they'll take profit over people most of the time and.

Andrea Ciaffi

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Josip Bandur

Because of that, the decline within the amount of experience with inside these organisations and the amount of things that they have to do has then. Contributed to how we deliver our projects these days. So what can technicians do? Look, come down to this level.

Josip Bandur

They're like outside of the tier one like this level is you now get a bit of a more of a say in what you do, how you deliver.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Josip Bandur

What quality you want to provide? Yes, there's still time pressures. Yes, there's still budget pressures, probably even more than with inside the some of those big organisations. But I feel that the. You can't. Your craft can be utilised a hell of a lot more with inside these sort of

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Josip Bandur

organisations at this sort of level and not be suppressed as much as what they do sort of with inside some of the some of the bigger organisations currently.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's good. That's that's a very interesting opportunity to to learn in a different way. Yeah.

Josip Bandur

Absolutely, yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

And thinking about learning that makes me think about the next generation you touched about on this point that there is this gap between. The more senior people and the new people coming into the industry, but do you think we are doing enough to mentor the next generation of technicians?

Josip Bandur

Yep. No, not even close. Not even close. Most of our work is going offshore. I'm sure we'll touch on that at some

Andrea Ciaffi

And.

Josip Bandur

point. Like I said, most of the people with inside the technician space are moving. You get, you get to a crossroad in your career, right? Your your crossroad is do I want to just keep doing what I love and that's the crossroad I took.

Josip Bandur

I want to keep doing documentation model delivery so therefore I'm able to still. Be in, be in and understand what is happening down in that delivery side of things, and then also impart some of my experience onto the younger generation and the other people that I get to work with or you take the path of bin management and.

Josip Bandur

Coordination and things like that. Now that I've had this, I had this conversation, I think with the Arcadis lead at the time I'm like. How does a BIM manager deliver a set of standards of delivery, especially within documentation and model delivery, when they're not actually doing the work themselves?

Josip Bandur

It's very different, like even being in the the the pace that technology and the softwares and everything is progressing like I'm even struggling to stay on top of all the different advancements in the in the different versions that are coming through. You know I I just.

Josip Bandur

I don't see how you can deliver a quality product if you're not actually delivering the quality product yourself. That that's my point. That's that's my perspective. So all these people that have been managers and but then they're also the drafting lead and the modelling lead and all this sort of stuff, but haven't really touched the model nor probably drafting.

Josip Bandur

Nothing package in the last four to five years. Look, I don't look. They'll come back at me and probably say no. I'm doing a great job. I don't see how you can if you aren't actually the The thing is that. The other thing that we're struggling to get is feedback.

Josip Bandur

The feedback loop, right?

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

People are less likely to come back to you with issues they're less likely depending on the environment that you create. Like if you've created a fantastic environment with your organisation where everybody is very open and honest. And honest is the keyword there about what they are, what they are doing and the the things that are going right, but also mainly the things that are going wrong.

Josip Bandur

As a as a manager or a senior, there's a certain personality that you need to have to be able to take that take that on because it's not always easy to take that on because you will always sort of divert to what you know and what you've always done and all that sort of stuff.

Josip Bandur

So it's hard to take that criticism. And sometimes something that I've had to learn very quickly over the last five or so five or so years as I said, my parents are Croatian. I still have Croatian blood in me and it does rise very quickly when in my younger years.

Josip Bandur

So I've had to try and make sure that. I take the perspectives that are being given to me and then see where I can utilise those perspectives Causeway. I think the way that we're delivering things now is that you take little bits of Nuggets that you find that you get across many years of your delivery, and you put them into your ideas and perspectives as well.

Josip Bandur

And that is how you advance. That is how you. Make things better. That is how you then start developing

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

that, increasing that quality, increasing that efficiency, increasing that effectiveness of what you are delivering. If you struggle to take on criticism and different perspectives. Then you're probably going to be stuck in a single lane for for most of your career.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's a very valid point. You need to yeah, listen to and receive the feedback in a intelligent way. Understand that that if you have a mentor, that mentor is probably giving you advice to help you improve.

Josip Bandur

Absolutely. Absolutely at all levels, I tell, I tell all of our guys in measure in our Melbourne office and in our Brisbane office, I don't care what level you are. Don't don't look at me as some guy that's up here at this, you know with this title.

Josip Bandur

That title means nothing to me at the end of the day, we are all here delivering the same thing. You're still producing a model. I'm still producing a model. You're producing documentation? I'm producing documentation. We're here to work together. We're here to work as a team.

Josip Bandur

I know that you're going to be doing that. A little bit slower than what I would, but that's fine as long as you keep asking the right questions and being open and asking those questions and making sure that. You don't. You're not afraid to do so.

Josip Bandur

That's all I ask for. That's what I all I ask for from everybody. Doesn't matter what level you are. Don't be afraid to come in and have your view. And let's have a conversation around it.

Andrea Ciaffi

Now that's great. I I love this radical candour. That's very good.

Josip Bandur

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

You touched on the reality of delivery and the pressure that we are facing at the moment, but from your point of view, what are the biggest delivery challenges that you see repeatedly across projects? Yeah.

Josip Bandur

As I think you've had it on a few podcasts now, time and budget,

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Josip Bandur

time and budget. Everything is time and budget.

Andrea Ciaffi

Time and budget.

Josip Bandur

There's not enough of it in both in both respects, so you have to try and deliver. What you can with inside those constraints,

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

I think we're being tightened and tightened and tightened, but in saying that, if you produce a quality product like I said, the clients that come back to you will be willing to maybe pay a little bit more.

Josip Bandur

Maybe give you a little bit more time, a little bit more leniency in things because they know what they're going to get, the product that they're going to get from you. So yeah, it's it's always, it's always just time, time and budget.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, it's sort of the same problem. And how do you manage the expectations

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

when the leadership teams demands? I really don't align with what's realistic.

Josip Bandur

I'm I'll have conversations with people a lot. I will be, as you've seen,

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

very open and honest. The great thing about measure, it's it's a lot harder inside a bigger tier firm, right, because you've got a lot of people to go through to get a message. To get a message across at measure, I've got two people, three people to get my message across.

Josip Bandur

I've got my office leader and our managing directors and that's it. So it's it's quite easy for myself.

Andrea Ciaffi

That's good.

Josip Bandur

To as long as I deliver the message in a way that they can understand why I'm doing it, the how, why, and when then. I've been very lucky that they've literally been on board with most of the things that I've sort of put forward currently within my couple of years.

Josip Bandur

I think I said this to our office manager just last week, I said, you know, it's amazing what we've been able to do.

Josip Bandur

In just the 18 or so months that I've been here at measure, it would have probably taken me three and three to four years in a big firm to be able to do just what we've been able to sort of achieve and bring forward the maturity levels and the amount of digitization and all that sort of stuff within just our little organisation in that short period of time.

Josip Bandur

And that's just. Probably a big word. There is trust they've entrusted me to

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

use my experience and help the business to develop, grow, mature. That's probably a valid point going the other way. I think we've lost a lot of trust in our people. I think we've lost a lot of trust. Just in our organisation, in our managers, in our some, sometimes even in our leadership teams, to actually make the right calls again people, people of influence.

Josip Bandur

Do you have the right people within the positions of influence? If you get those positions wrong, things can go very S very quickly. As I you know, as we've we've all seen inside different

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Josip Bandur

organisations and all that sort of stuff. So getting the right people in the right positions. Is very important and then just also being able to deliver the message in a way that it doesn't matter if you're technical like we are or non-technical at all.

Josip Bandur

And just looking after the business side of things. Because they have their own skill sets that we have no idea about as well. So, but you need to be able to deliver a message and make sure that that message is delivered in a way that they are understanding of why it's going to.

Josip Bandur

Either cost or take time, or do that with for a certain reason.

Andrea Ciaffi

That's good. And you you mentioned now sometimes even

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

like the managers are far and sometimes disconnected to the delivery part. But if the manager are disconnected, imagine the leadership team.

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

So I wonder like is there if there is anything if there is one thing that?

Josip Bandur

Yeah. Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

You wish leadership team understood about delivery. What? What would that be?

Josip Bandur

None. I think it just comes down to just the understanding of why things. The issue we have is that everything that we see out in the world today, on socials and all this sort of stuff is how quick we can be.

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

You see all the great stuff, right? You can see I could click this one button

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

and this is all done. And I'm like, no, it doesn't work like that. That's a big bunch of smoke and mirrors. You go in behind and it's broken. All the time. So it's that it's a. It's a communication side of things, right? How we communicate the information like this is what BIM was supposed to be, right?

Josip Bandur

How do we communicate information, data to get it to the right people at the right time. That's what BIM was supposed to be all about, right? But even at a general level, we have so much technology to be able to communicate with each other, just like we are now here today.

Josip Bandur

And I think I think we've gotten worse at communicating than better. We have so many different avenues to be able to have a conversation through

Andrea Ciaffi

Mm-hmm.

Josip Bandur

different pieces. Technology and all this sort of stuff. But I think the way that we communicate. Has probably also decreased itself in its value. And therefore the message is not getting across. Maybe as it used to as well.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, I I like this point rather to the fact that we we always see good example of when things went well and that creates a perception that things can be done very, very quickly.

Josip Bandur

Absolutely. Yep.

Andrea Ciaffi

However many times people say just give me that one button that does everything. Or I think 1 something I remember from many, many years ago.

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

Somebody in the BIM team said to me and I just simply say that there is no task that takes one hour. So there is nothing under one hour. Just don't think that there is anything we can do in less than one hour because it's not real.

Andrea Ciaffi

I need to turn my computer on.

Josip Bandur

Yep.

Andrea Ciaffi

I need to open Revit. I need to open open the files and one

Josip Bandur

And when I was going already. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. No, look. Absolutely.

Andrea Ciaffi

hour it's gone. Yeah, yeah.

Josip Bandur

And that. And that's where the communication side comes in. Right, we we we get the same thing. Right. Oh, just cut those five sections. I'm saying, yeah, but then I have to put them on the

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Josip Bandur

drawing. I have to make them look pretty. I have to do all this sort of stuff that's going to take more, like, even the smallest of changes does take

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Josip Bandur

time, and this is where we we start. It's the communication side of things about getting that understanding on. And we have a lot of conversations within our office and we're able to because we are just a quite a small firm. So we have a lot of conversations about this sort of stuff.

Josip Bandur

We are very and we have an open and honest policy with inside out for our organisation as well, so. We're constantly having those conversations about why things are taking this sort of time, understanding why they are taking that sort of time. Is there ways that we can improve that?

Josip Bandur

And again, but it all comes back to again. I want this to look like this. That's great. But it will take you this amount of time because you are going above and beyond what would be classified as standard sort of delivery within today's sort of delivery outcomes that we are seeing with within industry.

Josip Bandur

So it all comes back to communication. It all comes back to open.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's great.

Josip Bandur

An honest communication I feel with all levels of management, the more understanding that you get of. The other thing is we're not always exposed, especially in bigger firms, to the pressures that leadership has, right, we don't quite again coming down to this level and these are the things that I'm

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

learning very quickly is that there's a lot of other things to think about than just yourself or just delivery or just. Producing that piece of documentation, everything has a level of pressure associated to a right. Once you get up in the leadership levels and all that sort of stuff, even more pressures come on to you as well.

Josip Bandur

So they don't always, they're not always going to have the time for you by making sure that at to a certain. People have an understanding of what you do, why you do it, and how you do it. Then some humankind. Empathy comes back your way as well.

Josip Bandur

In saying, hey, I've got this project supposed to get it

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

out this week, but I know that it's probably going to take two weeks and I'm like, look, let's see what we can do. Like just a little bit of empathy back towards everybody. Doesn't matter what level you are sitting at makes a makes a world of difference in getting a project, getting an understanding of a project and also getting a project delivered.

Andrea Ciaffi

Pretty good, but let's talk about the elephant in the room outsourcing. I know this is a topic you're really passionate about and I just want to know because I know you think that it affects

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

how we develop the new generation of technicians. I just want to understand from. Your point of view, what do you think about outsourcing and

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

what are some hidden costs of relying heavily on outsourcing?

Josip Bandur

Disclaimer, I'm not against outsourcing a lot of people think I'm against outsourcing. I'm not. I think the there's a balance and that balance in Australia is way off and that's the issue. There's a reason why our skill set the availability of people and their skill sets and the level of their skill sets in this country is unavailable to us.

Josip Bandur

It's because we have gone that far. Unbalanced in our delivery of projects to outsourcing that we have not brought through those next generations. We are not allowing people to develop. We are not allowing people to have the time to learn the skills to learn from the basics.

Josip Bandur

You come in now to a firm. It's sink or swim. You got to go and you got to go at 100 miles an hour. So I think it's all about that balance. If we can get the, if you can get the balance right.

Josip Bandur

That's you're part of the way for outsourcing to help or aid, right? I have this conversation, I think just last week with one of our technicians. And I said if an organisation was able to get the amount of resources that they have offshore at the cost of offshore here in Australia, would we?

Josip Bandur

We have offshoring. The answer is no, we wouldn't have offshoring right.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, fair enough.

Josip Bandur

So I think we have the resources, but we're never going to get that cost base. So at the end of the day, offshoring is used to reduce cost right now. At some point in time, we're going to get to a point where.

Josip Bandur

You're going to have to offshore 100% because you're just not going to have the available people anymore because you are not putting the investment and the time into your local people.

Josip Bandur

You're not putting the time and investment into bringing up the next generations, and that goes into not just technicians but into engineers into all levels of of delivery within with inside the AEC industry like we need to give people the.

Josip Bandur

Time we need to people give people the investment we need to give people the mentorship to be able to deliver our projects an at the end of the day, we are delivering rojects. It makes it sound like offshoring is a bad thing, right?

Josip Bandur

But I think we can both help each other.

Andrea Ciaffi

MMM.

Josip Bandur

But like I said, you need to you need to get that balance right to be able to do that. The other thing is. We we have a thing in Australia is a. It's funny because I've done, I've done work for the NSW, I've done work for Victoria, I've done work in Queensland, right and let's go.

Josip Bandur

Let's stick to infrastructure just for a for a minute there. The way that they deliver their documentation is completely different, completely different. If you're doing a bridge in Queensland, if you're doing a bridge in NSW, if you're doing a bridge in Victoria, there is no standardisation across any of those.

Josip Bandur

Any of that documentation delivery 0 absolutely 0. Now we have a federal government that does things completely different. We have state governments that do things completely different. We have even councils with inside those states that do things completely different. Now. Let's take that into account.

Josip Bandur

Let's take our individual organisations. Individual organisations from an outskirt outside facing will say that we are one team we all know that's not true, right? We all know that most organisations will live inside their silos with inside their organisations, right? And things will be done a little bit differently depending on the team that you're working for.

Josip Bandur

And what you're doing? Yes, there is a baseline standard that most of them adhere to, but it's not always perfect. Right now, let's go offshore. So different delivery standards across different states, different organisations, different silos with inside those organisations. What sort of quality do you think you're going to get from your offshore team coming back?

Andrea Ciaffi

And.

Josip Bandur

Like it's it's it's. It's such a difficult formula to put together and get something standardised and delivered back to a quality that you would be expecting, right? The only way these things sort of work is that if you were to get somebody with inside your organisation to go over there, wherever your offshoring is live there, mentor, be a part of that organisation.

Josip Bandur

Like they're your own Home Office, or they're just working from home, you know, seem as like they're working from home. Then we've seen that that can work. That quality then improves. But there is also cultural backgrounds. There is also communication backgrounds. There is also a bunch of other factors as well.

Josip Bandur

Well, that that starts to affect different bits and pieces in quality that that comes back and then the quality that gets delivered throughout the project life cycle with inside of that.

Josip Bandur

So there is a way that you can get to a certain standard, but it's never going to be perfect and nobody is, I don't. I personally don't think nobody's cracked the code yet on how to get that to work efficiently and effectively. For me, it's all about the balance we need to readjust that balance back to.

Josip Bandur

Local compared to offshore. We need to make sure that we have those generations coming through, giving them the time and investment to be able to deliver the projects of the future, because I'll be long retired and I'm thankful for that, but we will get to a stage where we're not going to have.

Josip Bandur

Those people to be able to continue doing doing that side of things if we continue on sort of the paths that we are heading on. With inside of that.

Andrea Ciaffi

At the point, yeah, at the point you lose the mentors as well,

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

and you, you won't have the people that go to whichever country to train the people in that country as well, so you'll be.

Josip Bandur

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, but you look at an old engineering firm,

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, it would be a very difficult situation to be in.

Josip Bandur

right? You used to have 20 engineers and you used to probably have just about the same, if not more technicians, to support them.

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

Because of the way we were delivering those projects back in those days, yes, those teams have compressed and shrunken, but when you got now one or two people here locally doing 20 people offshore. What do you think the pressures are on those people?

Josip Bandur

They're trying to make sure, number one, that the quality that they're getting back is what is expected of them, but then also having to do everything that they need to do here back locally, it just puts and this is where it comes

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

to the burnout. And I'm sure we'll get to it, but. The the and This is why we get people within sort of my generation starting to really think about is it worth it anymore? Like, is it truly worth it anymore? Me sitting here getting absolutely hammered week in, week out, not just by.

Josip Bandur

The local pressures, but then also those pressures as well and that's where we sort of start seeing people going look, no, that's enough or they did what I did and now you go. No, I've had enough of this. I'm just going to come down to say this sort of level and just.

Josip Bandur

Continue doing what I love without with different sort of pressures, but at least you know those pressures are working towards something a little bit more internal and a little bit more on that quality side of things of of delivering a product as well.

Josip Bandur

So yeah, no, it's. If an organisation can find the balance, I think that they will excel themselves past everybody within industry, but nobody's found that balance and nobody's found the right formula yet to deliver a quality product using. All of all of that in in, in my opinion, in my opinion.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah. And you mentioned the burnout. I just want to know from your point of view, how do you see the burnout showing up in teams and what can leadership to do to prevent this burnout and also retain good people? Yeah.

Josip Bandur

Again, it's a time pressures and budget, right? The amount of if you keep putting that on to people, people feel suffocated, right?

Andrea Ciaffi

Mm-hmm.

Josip Bandur

So there's a little bit of empathy required to. Understand that. What we what you want and what we are delivering takes a certain amount of time and effort and and those sort of things. And then just making sure that you look after your people have conversations with them you know.

Josip Bandur

Umm. Give him that little bit of try and give him that little bit of extra time to be able to deliver that or or understand why it's taking what it is taking and how can we assist you inside doing that. I don't. I don't really have the answer to it because of the time, like even in even in my role here down that's within measure.

Josip Bandur

Like I feel the pressure sometimes. Also I have 3:00 and 3:00 or so projects going right at the minute all at the same time I've got 3 versions of Revit open with and plus doing some standing. Standardised documentation around that, like there's always going to be pressures, but understanding yourself, understanding what you are trying to deliver.

Josip Bandur

I'm still learning on time management side of things. I think that's a big learning curve on trying to manage time and expectations and then also communicating that time and expectations to people and making them understand what we are delivering, where we're at and what it's going to take to be able to deliver.

Josip Bandur

That project. So look, I've been doing this for 22, nearly 22 years and I still don't know the the right formula to be able to do that. But coming back to self understand who you are, understand what you are, what you want out of this.

Josip Bandur

I know what I want from this. I want to deliver a quality product. I love what I do. So to me it's always running through my COGS always turn on. How do I make sure I am delivering on that but also enjoying? Doing that as well.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah. And speaking about doing that as well, I know you have a very interesting and unusual view around maybe not unusual, more uncommon view around being in this role where you are at the same time a doer and a driver and a leader.

Andrea Ciaffi

So it's it's quite uncommon, right?

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

So I'm just keen to.

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

Understand from your point of view what motivates you to stay deeply involved in

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

the delivery, even as a leader.

Josip Bandur

Yeah. I love it. At the end of the day, at the end of the day,

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Josip Bandur

you've got to love it like and it's also the people around you, right? They may. They can either make you or break you so. I love people that know me, know I love what I do. There is no way that I would ever give up documentation.

Josip Bandur

Delivery ever. Unfortunately with my experience and technical ability, leadership was always going to have to fall into this into there somewhere so. That's still a massive learning curve for me. Trying to navigate that sort of things, plus also still do what I love to do has been has been an absolute challenge.

Josip Bandur

I think we mentioned earlier if you or we might not have like if you think you're good at what you do, come down to this level. And let's see how good you really are like I think.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Josip Bandur

This has opened my eyes up a hell of a lot to many different things, so I think you you have to be a certain type. I always we always joke in the office I'm and I always say I'm just built different, right? I I struggled which is a good thing and a bad thing.

Josip Bandur

I struggled to switch off and that's probably one of my bad things to a certain extent, but good things for the business because I'm always thinking I'm always wanting to do, always wanting to move forward. But personally I've got to find ways that I need to switch off so.

Josip Bandur

I struggled to switch off. My cogs are always turning. I'm always thinking about what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, what's next on the agenda, but also thinking about industry as well, because at the end of the day, like I said, our industry is very small.

Josip Bandur

I love having the conversations just like this one with others because that's that's where you learn so much. That is where you get the most amount of knowledge is in the knowledge sharing with others within our industry. And. Yeah.

Josip Bandur

Being still within the delivery side of things gives me, I think I'm seeing as more approachable because I am still very much delivering with inside my own team, but also externally as well. I think some some people you sometimes think you're going. Oh, there's what's his name?

Josip Bandur

I don't know if I should talk to him because or her because of their stature or their, you know, within within the industry so. Um, I try and make sure I I stay, um, stay humble and just make sure people are. When they come up to me, just have the conversation just.

Josip Bandur

Be open. Be honest. Some people you will attract. Some people will just not like you and that is OK with me. You'll you'll find that if you are open and honest and you have a perspective and you're able to outline that perspective. Most people will be very open to having that conversation.

Josip Bandur

They're very personable towards you. It's the ones that probably are a lot more close minded that probably might go go away from you and and that's and

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

that's OK. You're never going to. And that's that's one of the other things you're never going to please everybody. You are never going to please everybody. So having a defined line of what you want, how you want to do it. That you know the how, when, what and why answer all those questions if you can answer all those and it makes sense, it's probably a good thing.

Josip Bandur

It's probably a good thing. If you can't answer all those questions, maybe there's a little bit more work that's required to be able to do that. So yeah, look, I I just, I just love what I do. I love seeing a great set of documentation and I love seeing.

Josip Bandur

People produce a great set of documentation and I hope we never lose the craft. I really do, but that that that is a massive concern.

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. And one of the we're close to the end of the episode, I just one more question for you. I think it will be very interesting to understand your perspective on which is the future of the role. So this role has changed a lot in a short time because.

Josip Bandur

So that way.

Andrea Ciaffi

It isn't a long time ago where people were were drawing by hand on these. On these tables, large rooms and people can Google draughts and and go on images and see what they look like. And they were even smoking in in offices.

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

And very quickly, the transition to from that to had and

Josip Bandur

Yeah, absolutely.

Andrea Ciaffi

then to 3D and now we are talking about AI, we still probably don't know exactly what that means for this industry, but I just want to know from your point of view,

Josip Bandur

Yep.

Andrea Ciaffi

where do you see the role of the technicians evolving in the next maybe 5-10 years, so any view? You may have.

Josip Bandur

I think it depends on the level that you end up moving into. I think the higher level of construction and engineering firms, I think they will move quick. I think that that will change rapidly. Umm uh. I don't think it'll change all too much.

Josip Bandur

Say, within your smaller builders, your smaller architects. Your because we just don't have the budgets nor the capabilities or the knowledge all the time to be able to put in as much effort into these sort of things. So we'll sort of be coat tailing on on top of all these things that are getting delivered where I see technicians I I hope we see a retraction in.

Josip Bandur

None. Roles engineers should be engineers. Technicians should be technicians. We need to have trust in both of those facets to be able to deliver a project, deliver a great design with a great set of. Documentations down the line, it might be just a model.

Josip Bandur

I know there's a big push for just the model. I don't think it works, especially here in Australia. Like I said with the multi standardised delivery and everybody wants to sign. Sign off on a piece of paper, but at some point it it it might get there, but I think the technician's role will always be there.

Josip Bandur

I just hope that that technician's role is here and not offshore. I hope that we have people here creating delivering a quality product and using that experience to then impart that experience onto others.

Josip Bandur

I hope that our industry sees the value in what each level of delivery delivers and doesn't just always look at that number, don't always look at the number, look at the product that you're producing. And really, ask yourself, are you happy with the product that you are producing?

Josip Bandur

Is the answer is yes. Great. If the answer is no, then why are we not changing that? So look, I think. I hope that. Industry son, they always say never look behind. Always go forward, right. But I hope that we do look a little bit more behind and go what did.

Josip Bandur

What did we do so well back then? Right. Why are we trying to reinvent? Reinvent something. Be more supposed to make life easier, right? Be more supposed to make. 3D modelling, Revit all this sort of stuff was supposed to make our lives easier.

Josip Bandur

All it's done is complicate our lives. All it's done is just complicate the absolute insert word here of our lives.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Josip Bandur

So I think we just need to bring things back to basics, right? We all want to be able to. Single button push something in it all to be done. What happens when that button breaks? Like can that? Can we still do it the other way?

Josip Bandur

Is there another way? Is that button adaptable? Is that button or is that the be all and end all? If that button is the be all and end all of your organisation, you're in trouble because there's only a few people that know that button and know how that button was developed so.

Josip Bandur

You lose those people. They're probably being paid very well, actually. But if you lose those people, then everything sort of. It it all flows down right, that one button decreases the knowledge of everybody below them, because if you're just clicking that one

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Josip Bandur

button. You're decreasing yourself of knowledge. 'Cause why does it do that? How does it do that? If you don't know that answer, then you need to ask those questions. So I know because we go back to.

Josip Bandur

Back in the this is probably going a little bit back, but if we have back in AutoCAD right all you needed to know was how to put together an xref and how to distinguish some layers. That's all you really needed to know, right?

Josip Bandur

So you could jump into any firm. And then be able to sort of get in understand the process and procedure and deliver a project. Let's jump to Revit. All these other technologies, right you go to. Three different firms. They are doing things. You're literally starting from scratch in all three of those firms.

Josip Bandur

You have no idea what they do. Some of them might have their own bunch of Dynamo scripts that they run. Some might have their own C toolbar that they're running. The other one might be literally running Revit at. It's all time basics from out-of-the-box families.

Josip Bandur

Are you adaptable enough to be able to go? I can sit in each one of those offices and deliver a project. If the answer as a technician is no Start learning. Start learning, because adaptability is what will keep us as technicians around. If you are not adaptable, it's much easier to.

Josip Bandur

Either outsource or AI or role. Most likely in the future. If you are able to be adaptable and problem solve, understand and communicate and deliver. Those roles will never be automated. Those roles will never be AI D you are probably worth your weight in gold, so understand the process.

Josip Bandur

Understand the workflow, ask 101 questions, understand it, and then. Form your own opinion on everything that we do.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah. Thank you, Joseph. This is a fantastic episode.

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

I I really love it. I really love your, your honest insights and the fact that you can represent the voice, the of of those who are still deep in the doing. But you really bring a different perspective to the table actually really love and I think.

Andrea Ciaffi

I feel like these episodes could continue for the next 10 hours.

Josip Bandur

Oh yeah. No, no.

Andrea Ciaffi

We should we should at some point record another episode, my friend, and keep on talking about other topics, but this was really great.

Josip Bandur

Yeah. Thank you.

Andrea Ciaffi

So if people I know you're very active, active. On LinkedIn. But if people want to reach out to you,

Josip Bandur

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

where can they find you?

Josip Bandur

Oh, absolutely. Look, LinkedIn is definitely the place to get me if you want to hear some bombs coming out, then that is probably the place to go to if you. If you saw my last LinkedIn post. If you're there just to sell me something, please don't. Please don't follow me.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Josip Bandur

But look, if if you're if you just want to learn grow. Because I also want to learn and grow. So, you know, getting different connections from different industries and different types of people different. Countries, even like the amount that you can learn is today, is just wild, absolutely wild, and you need to be open to learning and growing and taking in that knowledge.

Josip Bandur

I think that's going to benefit everybody and anybody, doesn't matter what industry you are in. So definitely LinkedIn, yeah, come and say hi.

Andrea Ciaffi

Thank you, Joseph. Have a great day.

Josip Bandur

Thanks Andrea. Thank you very much.