nD modelling: Where next?

The roadmap attempts to capture all the discussions that were generated during the workshops and shows that in order to reach the final nD destination landing place, notably the roadmap demonstrates that there are more obstacles that are human and organisational in nature than technological. Barriers of this kind were cited in all the workshops as most problematic in nature due to the unpredictability of the behaviour of groups and individuals, and the multiple effects that that behaviour can have. Whilst the development and uptake of technology is also unpredictable, the specific issues do not persist in the same way as for the social aspects. More specifically, whilst we now have increasingly more sophisticated ways of remaining in touch as technical barriers continue to be broken down – telephones, fax machines, mobile phones, video-conferencing, wireless laptops, multimedia tools – the social problems of their usage in the workplace for collaboration and decision making remain. Education/culture and performance measurement, and business case and process were established as being the biggest challenges.