Building Decisions

Decision-making is critical. Leaders make decisions daily, often hyper-focusing on cost at the expense of value for society and with negative impacts on the environment and the climate. Project teams are poorly equipped to make decisions and prefer to avoid conflicts instead of having a healthy discussion based on different perspectives. We need to learn ways of making decisions that give better outcomes. Building Decisions presents a framework and practical guidelines for everyday decision-making. The authors introduce the reader to a specific decision-making system, Choosing By Advantages (CBA), and explain the CBA Tabular decision-making method. Providing detailed explanations using relatable examples such as choosing a phone and renovating a kitchen, the book also uses case studies of large construction projects from the authors' professional careers, including a museum in San Francisco, a tunnel in England, and the main railway station in Munich, to explain the CBA method. These varied examples will help the reader to improve their own decision-making process through critical reflection. Written by three curious experts who founded a research lab focusing on decision-making and want the world to make better decisions. Paz, Annett, and Randi have published dozens of peer-reviewed papers and trained multiple practitioners and engineers on how to make collaborative decisions using CBA. They have designed this book to help professionals, leaders, anyone, and everyone make better and more inclusive decisions and achieve better outcomes.

Paz Arroyo is a global leader in Lean Construction. She earned her PhD at UC Berkeley, focusing on collaborative decision-making. She has tested the effectiveness of Choosing By Advantages (CBA) in construction projects, publishing widely on the topic. As a Lean and Quality leader for a major international contractor, she develops strategies to improve the construction industry. Annett Schöttle earned her PhD at Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT), Germany, on requirements and incentives to create a collaborative Lean project delivery system for capital projects. She works as an independent Lean consultant with extensive experience in megaprojects, helping teams collaborate to develop, align, and optimize production planning from project start to commissioning, and implementing CBA for better decision-making in various settings. Randi Christensen is an engineer by background and earned her PhD at Aalborg University, Denmark, focusing on how we learn from project to project. As Sustainability Director at an international engineering consultancy, her focus is on decision-making as this is the key point where we can drive the projects in a more sustainable direction by including multiple voices and pools of knowledge.

Foreword by Glenn Ballard Preface Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: What is a Decision? Chapter 2: Why Decisions Do Not Stick Chapter 3: Focus on Value and Cost Chapter 4: Changing Bad Habits Chapter 5: CBA, A Sound Decision-making Method Chapter 6: CBA Tabular Method: Sustainable Museum Case Study Chapter 7: Not all Decision-making Methods are Created Equal Chapter 8: CBA and the Tendering Procedure of Construction Projects Chapter 9: Building a Collaborative Decision-making Process Chapter 10: Decisions and Innovations for our Future Chapter 11: How to Build Better Decisions Glossary