Managing trade-offs in complex scenarios : a decision-making tool for sustainability projects

• Autor(a) principal: Magalhães, Ruane Fernandes de
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Danilevicz, Angela de Moura Ferreira, Palazzo, José Truda
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFRGS
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10183/220904
• topic: Tomada de decisão; Gestão de projetos; Ferramentas de gestão; Trade-off management; Sustainability projects; Complex projects management; Decision-making tool

The inclusion of sustainability factors in projects is considered a challenge for technicians, managers anddecision makers. Sustainability projects deal with a large number of criteria from different areas, makingthe decision-making process more complex and uncertain. Multicriteria methods can guide projectchoices to reach their objectives; however, they are not able to manage the overlap and conflicting as-pects of these objectives, called trade-offs. Trade-offs are considered to be an integral part of any sus-tainability project, since they address conflicting objectives, taking into account environmental, socialand economic aspects. In some studies, trade-offs have been approached from the view of their for-mation process, or from how they can be identified in projects. However, there is a gap in the literaturerelated to structured procedures to support decision-makers after the identification of trade-offs.Therefore, this paper proposes a tool to support trade-off management in the decision-making processin complex sustainability-focused projects. The Trade-Off Decision-Making tool assists the projectplanning stage, unfolding into two sequential phases: guidelines to be considered for the management oftrade-offs; and trade-offs management operationalization. The guidelines were developed based onliterature best practices, while the trade-offs management originated from the operationalization offivecomparative analyses carried out between conflicting objectives, using a structured worksheet. Theproposed tool contributes to the proper handling of conflicting objectives in sustainability projects notonly in managerial but also operational areas. Our guidance structure for handling trade-offs providesgreater robustness, objectivity and traceability to the choices made during the planning of sustainability projects.