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A CAD Manager for a large civil engineering firm complained to me about the difficulty of change in his organization. That sounds familiar doesn’t it. He wants to employ the Framework. To get his firm principals to see the light is hard. He delivered this oh so quotable moment:

“I sometimes feel like I’m an Indy car mechanic who has to replace tires, not in the pit, but on the racetrack while the car is still running at 200mph…”

Too true. Thump thump. What’s that sound?
We who do the do know the drill.
My somewhat jaded response,

“We ARE always rebuilding the entire racecar on the track all the time.
When we know (in the Biblical sense) that we do that, we start to try and do things differently or not.”

You may have to think about that last sentence. Me too.

Can We Change?
We Can Manage to Change

Change is bad when the change is unmanaged or managed badly. Put another way – We know that change is much easier when you change a little bit all the time. This is a discipline and an art.
The IronMan Change Management Motto - Give me one more rep.

Managed Systemic change is the central reason de jour for the Framework for Civil 3D.
The Framework has progressed through 5-6 major revisions to the internal Layer Standards and the mechanics, tools, and resources to manage those standards. That adds up to lots of real world Civil 3D execution and production environment practice. Honestly, we learned differently only because we had to.

Managed Layer Standards

Today, the Framework’s managed system happily supports multiple Layer Standards including variants and flavors of the NCS and it’s many standards cousins like the GSA, DOD, and US Army Corps.

I suppose since many folks appear to have difficultly sticking to one set of layer standards the idea of many or even a simple change of version is beyond comprehension or even imagination.

The invention is not about the What or Why. The real Framework innovation is about the How. If you have to change the tire at 200 mph, the problem is how and how to survive the experience.

The Keys to States and Filters

We have Jump Kit customers who only want to get our Layer Standards Spreadsheet Tools. They don’t use Civil 3D. Surprised? They say it’s worth every penny. If you do the work, you get it. Who am I to argue?

With the advent of the new Release 8 Layer NCS 6 AddOns I thought it might be handy for the folks in Civil 3D Land to have easy access to review the essential NCS background thought pieces and Layer Standards Q and A.

Note the only change I’d make to the Layer Standard posts is to change my old Civil 3D training term Discipline Keys to Work Keys just to reduce the confusion over the formal NCS Disciplines and the Major and Minor Key pairs that we employ to organize our flavored work within our discipline. Because these are self-evident in model systems, these Key couplets are more the thing in the NCS 6.0. Did they make these part of the standard?

We all have questions. Yes. It’s in there…

Layer Standards Posts

NCS Key Discipline Relates to Workflows

  • Layer Standards, Systems, and Keys
    The Why and How beyond the BIM in AutoCAD Civil 3D

Human Factors and the NCS

  • How we See What we Do in Civil 3D
    A deeper look at Discipline Key Standards and making them work

Blatant Flatulent Software Keys

  • You already use Keys. So What?
    How the software and our use and customization of it effects the Keys

Organizational Standard Keys

  • Management Issues and Keys in Civil 3D and the NCS

Some Views are Related

  • How Major and Minor Group Keys Hurt or Help us in Civil 3D

The Deep State in AutoCAD and Civil 3D

  • How Layer States and Layer Filters help us in Civil 3D

Civil 3D and the NCS Q and A

  • Fundamental Questions About the NCS and Keys

Get the Framework for Civil 3D
Innovation Beyond the Code