Optimizing Classroom Development And Renovation Process By The ULECC Of The University Of Sharjah

Committee’s Members

Classroom development and renovations are crucial components of modern learning institutions. In this context, the objective is to develop an optimized process for implementing and overseeing classroom establishment by the University Learning Environment Central Committee (ULECC) of the University of Sharjah. The entity approves and manages renovation plans and projects involving classrooms at the university. In addition, significant emphasis is placed on furniture, technology, and design. With regards to the committee’s members, the key personnel can be categorized according to management and the subcommittee team (design and IT) members. Although the committee has contributed significantly to the creation of a conducive learning environment for students at the University of Sharjah, the existing decision-making process needs to be optimized in order to address possible biases and traps.

The central committee’s process was utilized due to the growing need for new and innovative classrooms. In current times, learning institutions need to take into consideration aspects such as comfort, learning atmosphere, and other emerging issues such as social distancing. Thus, the committee needs to analyze suitable strategies for optimizing existing classroom designs. The committee handles classroom development and renovations through 8 key steps: 

1. The management team identifies infrastructure needs and proposes plans for developing or renovating classrooms and   surrounding structures.
2. The management team delegates responsibilities to subcommittee members to evaluate specific tasks, such as designing and technology assessment.
3. The subcommittee members submit feasible proposals for the management team to decide the best solutions.
4. The management team performs a cost-benefit analysis to decide the best proposal among the submitted recommendations.
5. The management team discusses with IT and design personnel the proposed project to ascertain the cost and estimated duration of the project.
6. The management team sends the estimated budget to the Chancellor’s Office.
7. The Chancellor presents the proposed project to the board of trustees to acquire approval for its implementation.
8. The management team finalizes the budget and meets with the procurement department to initiate the process of selecting tenders for classroom redesign and upgrade.

The development and renovation process used by ULECC was critically examined to identify key traps and biases, as shown in Table 1. Afterward, appropriate suggestions were proposed for addressing the errors. Lastly, the final column elaborates on the challenges of implementing the suggestions and relevant recommendations for addressing the issues. Based on the analysis provided in Table 1, it can be perceived that the university’s classroom development and renovation process is susceptible to several biases and traps: anchoring trap, information bias, status-quo trap, confirmation bias, hindsight bias, outcome bias, overconfidence bias, and sunk-cost trap.

Table 1: Analyzing the vulnerability of the classroom development and renovation process utilized by the ULECC of the University of Sharjah 

• The management team identifies infrastructure needs and proposes plans for developing or renovating classrooms and surrounding structures.

Infrastructure is susceptible to depreciation through agents of wear and tear, due to how frequent they are used. In The school which comprises a population of more than ten thousand students, there are parts of the infrastructure that are bound to wear out occasionally. These parts include; handrails, floor tiles, paint, lighting systems, ventilation, walkways, and classroom furniture (Kalkman, Kerstholt & Roelofs, 2018). The management team conducts routine checks in and around classroom areas to identify the parts that need renovation. After identification of specific areas that need renovation, it proposes plans for the renovations or constructions of classrooms and surrounding structures. The first step in the decision-making process is prone to be influenced by traps and biases. The trap involved during the first step of decision making (identification) is Estimating and Forecasting Traps. During the identification of faults within the infrastructure, there might be bias by the management team in isolating important areas that need renovation and neglecting those equally that need development. The management team might be trapped in identifying only the common areas of infrastructure that often need renovation and development. The impact of this trap is that poor estimation may lead to failure in the identification of the accurate extent of damages to infrastructure.

Traps and Biases in the Existing Decision-Making Process

To curb this trap of decision-making, the management team should ensure that diagnosis is done with the same intensity on all parts of the infrastructure of the classroom and classroom environment to ensure accuracy in identifying areas that need renovations and development the most. Further, the management team can assign a second party that is neutral to the status of the infrastructure, which is likely to provide contrary information to that of the management team. Finally, when investigating areas that need development and renovations (often to students and staff), it is advisable to avoid leading questions as they results would be biased hence to inaccurate information on infrastructure to be renovated or developed.

• The committee delegates responsibilities to management and subcommittee members to evaluate specific tasks, such as designing and technology assessment.

After receipt of proposal plans for developments and renovation from the management team, the University Learning Environment Central Committee (ULECC), assigns responsibility to specific department, and members. This level in decision-making is vital as it determines and structures the renovation and development process of the infrastructure. The tasks include assigning architectural designing, quantity surveying, and structural designing, among other tendering responsibilities. At this stage of decision making, The Framing Trap is likely to influence decision making, and the ULECC needs to be keen to avoid falling into the trap. Often, the committee is poised to make a decision based on the manner that which the management team presents its proposal plans.

When the management proposals lean towards or favor specific development or renovation plan, the committee may be lured into approving the plan. If the plan was not conducted duly by the management team, then the project may be a failure. Despite some areas of infrastructure needing much attention, those presented lower in the necessity ranks must also be considered. Thus, the committee should conduct adequate background checks on the plan before its approval.  During this level of decision-making, the overconfidence trap may also arise as a bias that the committee would equally need to avoid. Despite the frame being developed by a party well known by the committee, it should not be overconfident on the report or proposal without conducting all framing troubleshooting and looking into the negatives impacts of implementing the proposal plans.

Once the proposed plan is presented the management team should first counter the frame presented by posting questions that attempt to reframe the plan presented. Additionally, the committee should look at the various impact of implementing the frame and evaluating them, to identify other possibilities or frames to be applied.

• The personnel submit feasible proposals for the management team to decide the best solutions.

After an audit from the ULECC, the feasible proposal plans for the development and renovations of infrastructure at the institutions are presented to the management team, who will decide the best feasible proposal plan to implement. This stage of decision-making may be compromised by the effects of the Anchoring Trap should it occur. The personnel presenting the data or proposal plans may have the opportunity of putting their interesting plans top of the list, which will affect the judgment of subsequent proposals (Uitdewilligen & Waller,2018). Anchors may appear in form of presenters, consultants, or advocates with their intentions prioritized. Moreover, anchoring may also mean that the committee relies heavily on previous information about similar projects. These wipes current trends in cost estimation, project management, and other newer forms of project handling, which will result in poor costing and feasibility tests.

Suggested Solutions for Addressing the Traps and Biases

The committee should avoid having a point of reference, e.g., the initial proposed plan as the pivot for judging other proposals. After receipt of the feasible reports, the proposals should all be looked at from different angles, while factoring in current trends in project management, costing, and estimation (Robert Jr, Dennis & Ahuja, 2018). The committee should also have their problems that each proposal needs to answer before being chosen, this will prevent dependence on the past as a judgment for the current situation. For instance, the committee will have to come clear and document or table what infrastructural renovations and development they need, thus all proposals should aim at meeting the problems.

• The management team performs a cost-benefit analysis to decide the best proposal among the submitted recommendations.

The management team is tasked with performing a cost-benefit analysis to determine the best proposals among the presented feasible proposals. The responsibility is to evaluate individual reports and proposals to decide which saves the institutions on cost while achieving the development and renovation of infrastructure. This level is crucial as the proposal chosen will be implemented in subsequent stages of decision-making. The overconfidence trap may re-occur at this stage of decision-making. With the management team being confident in their decision-making ability, they might end up making unattainable decisions by deciding on an overambitious proposal. The management team should also avoid falling into the Sunk-Cost Trap, which will lead to redaction in decision making as they might be lured into attempting to recover lost infrastructure that at this point is unachievable. The management team thus needs to consult more to ensure they pick on the right decision.

When presented with feasible proposals to choose from, the management team needs to invite opinions from other parties to ensure a conclusive proposal is picked. Further, the management team should find out the impacts that the Sunk-Cost Trap is affiliated with and alter areas that will be affected by the trap. Through this, the management committee attempts to block the loopholes of the selected proposal.

• The management team discusses with IT and design personnel to ascertain the cost and estimated duration of the project.

Part of the organization’s decision-making process involves the management team discussing with the IT personnel to ascertain the cost and estimated duration of the project. This is an essential step in the organization’s decision-making by estimating the cost and the estimated duration of the project. However, this can sometimes be influenced by traps and biases which would likely undermine its effectiveness. One of the traps and biases identified with this process is the estimating and forecasting traps. While the committee is bound to make such estimations, they cannot ascertain their accuracy. Projects are sometimes influenced by other factors such as price rises or challenges with software which can affect the cost and duration. The other trap could be the recallability trap where the management might be overly influenced by previous projects and make undervalued or overvalued estimates. For instance, in a case where the project might have stalled due to cost or other impacts such as fall out between the team. The management might anticipate such an incident and base their decision on this demerit thereby overestimating the cost or duration of the project by exaggerating the probability of reoccurrence.

Challenges of Implementing the Suggestions and Recommendations

The best way to deal with traps and biases for estimating and forecasting would be to compare with previous scenarios to ascertain their probability of reoccurring (Panchuk, Klusemann & Hadlow, 2018). The management team and the IT and design personnel can choose to assess previous similar projects and compare the costs and duration of the projects. This will most certainly reduce the probability of making biased estimates and have more accurate results. They can also assess the possibility of price changes by looking at some of the former incidents that affected the price and how likely they can reoccur. This way, the decision-making process will not be impacted by biases and traps. The management and the IT team must also be disciplined in their approach to avoid the recallability trap.

• The management team sends the estimated budget to university finance personnel such as the Chancellor’s Office.

After making cost estimates, the management team will send the estimated budget to the university finance personnel such as the Chancellor’s office for further approval. While the management team can make estimates on the cost and duration of the project, they cannot approve or make the final decision on the project. They, therefore, have to rely on superior authorities to approve the start of the project. This is a prudent step with minimal biases and traps. However, the finance personnel can also fall victim to the traps and biases such as the prudence trap and status quo trap. Prudence can arise when in this case, the finance team is faced with making a critical decision such as cost-cutting. They can therefore be overly cautious or assume that the costs have been inflated. The status quo trap can arise from the finance personnel going hard against change. The project might require new dimensions which can possibly alter the prices; however, the finance team might want to maintain the project’s budget at the previous estimates.

To avoid falling victim to the prudence trap, the management must assure the finance department that the prices have not been inflated and have been submitted based on honest and accurate assessment. Through this, the finance personnel will feel more confident and make better decisions. Also, the management should outline the objective of the project and the basis for any changes that deviate from previous projects. They can also provide their analysis as to why such changes offer stronger value to the organization than the previous status quo.

• The Chancellor presents the proposed project to the board of trustees to acquire approval for its implementation.

The trustees make approvals for any significant projects based on their value to the institution. Once the chancellor has submitted the proposed project to the trustees for approval, they will be tasked with assessing its consequences and making the final decisions. However, similar to the previous scenario with the finance personnel, they might fall victim to the same biases and traps. The biases and traps would be the prudence trap and status quo. They can also feel overly cautious and hesitant in approving the project. Besides, they can also feel hesitant in making any changes that will contravene the status quo.

Similar principles applied in the scenario with the finance personnel should be applied in the case. The chancellor should assure the trustee of the accuracy and honesty applied to the project. They should ascertain that the project is based on honest assessment and will be valuable to the institution. Also, the chancellor should explain to the board of trustees why any deviations from previous projects have been made and why such changes are necessary. This will help the board of trustees not fall victim to the status quo trap.

• The management team finalizes the budget and meets with the procurement department to initiate the process of selecting tenders for classroom redesign and upgrade

The final process for decision-making in a development project involves the management team finalizing the budget and selecting tenders for the classroom redesign and upgrade. This would include making the best decision regarding the project’s tenders that will meet the estimated duration and cost. However, during this stage, the team can fall victim to all kinds of biases and traps. First, they might be affected by the status quo trap. This could happen when the team does not want to experiment with new ideas submitted by various bidders. Also, they could be affected by the framing trap and finally the prudence trap. The framing trap could occur when the team frames the question such that it suits their purpose or the bidders frame their question in a way to win the bid. Either way, the framing trap can negatively impact the overall project. The prudence trap would also likely occur when the bidders present higher prices than the team had estimated.

The best way to avoid such traps would include reaffirming the project’s objectives. This will help the team avoid any possibility of falling victim to the status quo and if changes any changes presented would result in positive outcomes. Also, ascertaining the objectives of the project would help the team avoid the possibility of the framing trap. The bidders should also assure the team that their proposals have carefully been considered and presented with the uttermost honesty.

To ascertain the project’s success, it must fulfil the objectives of the project. In this instance, the main goal of the project is to renovate buildings and classrooms. The best way to get the most value out of this project is by making the best decisions without being affected by traps and biases. These alternatives will eliminate such traps and biases and also do not add to the cost of the project. This makes them viable alternatives to the original decision-making process. Also, avoiding such traps can be informed within the organization’s policies under decision-making as part of the organization’s culture. The organization must therefore adhere to these criteria to avoid such traps in future projects.

To guard against the identified traps, this paper identifies various key suggestions which include, ascertaining the project objectives, acting with absolute honesty, comparing with previous projects and remaining disciplined while determining the scope of the project. These recommendations will help improve the relationship and success of the project while also working within the project scope. For instance, ascertaining project objectives would help the team avoid traps such as the framing trap, status quo and the prudence trap. Overall, the team must make rational decisions and avoid misleading traps and biases.

Conclusion

Decision-making is an important part of any project but can also negatively impact the institution if not done correctly. Every day decisions are marred by various traps and biases which can negatively impact a project or fail to maximize its full potential. Some of the most common forms of biases and traps include status quo, estimation and forecasting, framing and the sunk cost trap. The decision-making process should therefore include a procedure that would help the team avoid such forms of biases and traps. For the implementation of the alternatives, the decision-making process needs to be altered in specific areas, for instance, the third step that involves the submission of feasible proposals. At this stage, the committee should table their requirements so that all proposals aim at answering the demands of the committee, through this the traps and bias of anchoring and sunk cost trap, often nail down the committee to relying on old or past information in making decisions for current issues.

References

Kalkman, J. P., Kerstholt, J. H., & Roelofs, M. (2018). Crisis response team decision?making as a bureau?political process. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 26(4), 480-490.

Panchuk, D., Klusemann, M. J., & Hadlow, S. M. (2018). Exploring the effectiveness of immersive video for training decision-making capability in elite, youth basketball players. Frontiers in Psychology, 2315.

Robert Jr, L. P., Dennis, A. R., & Ahuja, M. K. (2018). Differences are different: Examining the effects of communication media on the impacts of racial and gender diversity in decision-making teams. Information Systems Research, 29(3), 525-545.

Uitdewilligen, S., & Waller, M. J. (2018). Information sharing and decision?making in multidisciplinary crisis management teams. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(6), 731-748. 

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