i-FM: The online resource for facilities professionals

After completing a PhD at Cambridge, If joined BP Exploration as a geologist in 1975 and spent 18 years as an oil industry professional including managing BP's Exploration and Production Research Division. The process gave him a continuing interest in the dynamics of organisational innovation, and the comparison, at different time scales, with similar dynamics in biological evolution.

In 1991 If was asked to lead a two-year Process Review project for BP Exploration, a task which involved capturing the lessons the corporation was learning concerning organisational transformation and seeking other insights into the topic from companies, business schools and consultancies on a global basis. He was involved in early examples of business process outsourcing and breakthroughs in partnership sourcing for major offshore developments, amongst others.

From 1993 If pursued a career as an academic researcher and consultant in the emerging field of FM and the wider areas of organisational development and complex adaptive systems theory. His 1998 book 'Shifting the Patterns' was one of the first to draw evolutionary theory and organisational development into a new approach to understanding organisations. He has written numerous papers and conference presentations on complexity and memetics, and their practical applications in the field of FM. He is also co-author of the RICS practice management guidelines and the first report of the occupier.org project. 

His current research and application interests are the development of strategic systems for businesses to assess the use they make of facilities, the facilitation of partnerships and the use of complexity and memetics to appreciate new working arrangements.