Being a choice architect in project management: the Galp energy example

Abstract

In a world where managing projects is a difficult task that requires several skills to succeed, several authors studied ways to prevent a project from deviation of its desired final outcome. This works intends to study the Choice Architecture tools presented in the book ―Nudge‖, through the development of an internal project at GALP energy, to present some key points to assess before its development, related with the need to manage the environment in which the stakeholders will work on the project. The main idea consists in preventing some behaviors and decisions that could lead the project development away from a desired outcome. Managing that environment where the choices are made is known as being a Choice Architect. To begin, this work will focus in knowing the company GALP energy, and where specifically the project progress. Once the global environment understood, the main project objective is unveiled, explaining the problem to be solved, the research done to solve it and how can the choice architecture be applied. Afterward, a specific study is presented on the way the choice architecture contributed for the final solution, justifying the importance on knowing how the brain work, and how the decision biases and heuristics can contribute for the choice architecture successful influence on the elaboration and protection of a project desired solution. To conclude, the project final result and the experience obtained from this work are explained justifying the reason that made this project to be considered a success by several persons. The reason of success is given in the end by the key clients and persons involved in the process.