Overview
Our Information Management Hub brings all your IWFM guidance, tools and resources together in one place, helping you navigate the growing importance of data and information in facilities management. As organisations rely more on accurate, well‑governed information to plan, operate and assure their services, you need clear and dependable support to meet these expectations.
This hub gives you a single, accessible point of reference to understand what good information management looks like and how it strengthens your decisions across the built environment. By drawing together standards, insights and practical guidance, it helps you build confidence, consistency and accountability in your information practices. Most importantly, it recognises information as an asset that underpins safe, efficient and future‑ready workplaces.
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Good practice guide
WFM is at a turning point. The profession is facing unprecedented challenges: rising expectations for accountability, the transition to net zero, evolving safety regulations and the disruptive potential of digital technology. These pressures are reshaping the role of WFM, demanding a shift from reactive service delivery to strategic, information-driven leadership. This guide has been created to support that transition. Download the guide, explore its tools and learn how to apply the Five-Layer Model in your organisation.
Technology hub
The IWFM Technology Hub is a curated knowledge resource designed to help workplace and facilities management professionals understand, adopt and maximise the value of digital innovation across the built environment. It brings together research, guidance, case studies and thought leadership to support the effective use of technology—from data and information management to smart buildings and emerging digital tools—enabling more informed decision-making and improved organisational performance.
Meet the author
Gordon Mitchell
Why was it important to develop a new Good Practice Guide on information management now? What challenges in the sector does it aim to address?
Because the job has changed.
FM is now expected to deliver net-zero, safety, resilience and great workplaces - often all at once and usually with less budget and more scrutiny. What’s missing is trusted, structured information.
Too often, our data is fragmented, outdated or simply not believed. That erodes confidence and quietly bleeds value out of the system. The new Good Practice Guide responds to that reality. It treats information not as a by-product but as a managed, lifecycle asset.
In short: it’s about making information a working part of the organisation and operation, not background noise.
The guide introduces the Five-Layer Model. Can you briefly explain what it is and how it helps organisations improve their information practices?
The Five-Layer Model is a simple but joined-up way to understand maturity across five dimensions: People, Processes, Data, Technology and Context.
Each one matters. People give purpose; processes create structure; data fuels insight; technology keeps things moving; and context reminds us why any of it matters.
When they’re aligned, you turn information into an engine for better decisions and more confident compliance. It also gives teams a shared language - a way to diagnose where they are and plan what comes next, step by step.
You describe information as ‘critical infrastructure’. What does that mean in practical terms for FM professionals and their organisations?
If you think about it, information already is infrastructure - we just don’t treat it that way.
In a hospital, asset data should be as reliable as the oxygen supply. In a university, as accountable as the energy meter. That means defined ownership, consistent standards and routine quality checks - just like any physical system.
In practice, that translates to clear roles, validated capture at source, governed models and outcome-aligned KPIs. Do that and FM shifts from reactive to predictive - from reporting on problems to actually preventing them.
How can strategic leaders use the guide to support ESG, compliance and organisational resilience?
It helps leaders connect outcomes to information.
If you can see how data supports ESG goals, financial performance and risk management in the same frame, you start making joined-up decisions. The guide helps integrate KPIs, align governance across FM and finance and move from counting outputs to understanding outcomes.
For example, energy data stops being just a number - it becomes evidence of net-zero progress. The result is an auditable “golden thread” that links what we do day to day with the promises our organisations make the difficulties with FM if some of our outcome value isn’t as easy to read as a meter so your information management needs to be strong to report your holistic FM value.
For WFM professionals in operational roles, what immediate benefits might they see from applying the guide’s principles?
A few things happen quite quickly:
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Work order and asset data become cleaner - captured once, used many times.
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Compliance packs take hours, not days.
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Technicians fix more first time because they have verified asset info in their pocket.
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Dashboards actually help people make decisions, instead of just proving they did something.
The real gain however could be argued to be more abstract - confidence. When the data’s right, everyone can get on with their job.
The guide is also aimed at service providers and supply-chain partners. What role do you see them playing and how can they use the guide?
Service providers are co-producers of the client’s information infrastructure - whether they realise it or not.
The guide gives them a clear reference point for bids, mobilisations and performance measures: shared data standards, consistent handover formats and agreed processes. That means the data they hand over is usable on day one - and stays usable over time.
It’s about building a supply chain that delivers information you can trust, not just services you can invoice.
What advice would you give to businesses just starting their information-maturity journey? Where should they begin?
Start small and diagnose before you digitise.
Pick one building or one process. Map the five layers. Identify the gaps. Then fix one of them - maybe mobile capture, or ownership of asset data. Measure what changes and build from there, at the same time map where you are building and as things start to coalesce you will find the way you are operating with information and then you can start to govern and position things more.
You don’t need to buy a platform to build maturity; you need ownership, clear data standards and a handful of meaningful KPIs. Complexity comes later. Confidence first.
Looking ahead, how do you see information management evolving in WFM and what role will this guide play?
We’ll see tighter integration of operational, ESG and financial reporting. Predictive intelligence will mature - AI, digital twins, more whole-life thinking in procurement.
This guide is a durable blueprint for that shift. It helps FM teams put structure and governance in place now, so they’re ready to move with those changes rather than chase them.
If you think of FM as the nervous system of the built environment, this guide is about improving the signal quality.
Can you talk a little about the link to standards - in particular ISO 19650?
Absolutely. The guide acts as a bridge between the standards we already have and the ones coming next.
It operationalises ISO 19650 for structured, lifecycle information delivery; connects with ISO 41001 for management systems; ISO 55000 for asset stewardship; and opens the door to ISO 42001 for responsible AI.
And importantly, it looks forward to BS 8587 - Facility Management Information Management, which is now being developed. That standard will finally give FM its own dedicated framework for managing and valuing information.
This guide positions FM teams to take control of that journey - ready to align with today’s standards and adapt to tomorrow’s. Done well, it gives FM its own value engine: information that doesn’t just describe performance, but drives it.
Webinar recordings
Articles
IWFM Information Management webinar brings leading facilities management experts to an audience of hundreds
One of IWFM’s superpowers is our ability to convene some of the brightest minds in our...
Information is critical infrastructure and FM is a key player – IWFM launches new Information Management good practice guide
IWFM’s latest good practice guide provides a transformative framework for how workplac...