Claudia Garrido, PhD, PMP

(Claudia Garrido Martins)

"I am passionate about learning."

Welcome to my website! It is a space where I share the podcasts that I subscribe, and websites and newsletters that I follow. I also enjoy sharing exciting podcast episodes, posts, and news. You are welcome to contact me to offer comments and ideas. Thank you for your visit!

Bio

I received my Ph.D. in Engineering from the Department of Civil, Construction & Environmental Engineering at The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM, USA (2019). I hold a B.Eng. degree in Industrial Electrical (Electronic) Engineering from CEFET/RJ, Brazil (1996), an MBA in Economics and Financial Engineering from UFF/RJ, Brazil (2006), and an M.S. degree in Civil Engineering from UFF/RJ, Brazil (2010). I am a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP). I was a recipient of the Brazilian CNPq grant Science without Borders for the 2015-2018 academic years during my doctorate. I am an Assistant Professor in the Engineering Technology and Construction Management Department at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I have 21 years of industry work experience, where 12 years were dedicated to project management in construction for the Oil and Gas field and construction programs up to US$ 8.3 billion. I also worked for seven years as a project coordinator/software developer in the Information Technology field and two years as an independent instructor, consultant, and researcher in Brazil. My teaching experience includes traditional and online classes on project management, risk management, design and simulation of construction operations, project delivery systems, construction scheduling, construction methods and equipment, and principles of engineering. My research interests in construction management include risk management, decision-making, modeling and simulation in construction projects, accelerated projects, and the impact of new technology on project performance. I am also passionate about the leadership subject and an enthusiast of outreach activities involving engineering concepts and sustainability. Finally, I am the person behind the GP3 Brasil blog and the @gp3brasil Twitter account.

Currículo Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8892956904643975

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudia-garrido-569131

Courses

Curso online: Uma Visão Geral da Gestão de Riscos.

(Online course in Portuguese) (Curso online em Português)

Olá, para eu lhe falar sobre este curso, eu quero te apresentar o Joaquim e a Ana. Eles são dois profissionais que trabalham de 2ª a 6ª de 8h às 17h e que buscam atualização ou novos conhecimentos para resolver problemas que surgem nos seus trabalhos. O Joaquim é recém formado, trabalha na operação de uma fábrica de latas e quer crescer profissionalmente para realizar seus sonhos, aumentar seu poder de consumo e melhorar seu equilíbrio financeiro, mas ele tem dificuldade de equilibrar o tempo. A Ana terminou a graduação há alguns anos, trabalha com projetos de desenvolvimento de software e busca uma estabilidade para realizar seus sonhos e seus consumos, e melhorar sua priorização financeira, mas ela tem pouco tempo para estudar.

Em seus trabalhos, o Joaquim e a Ana estavam vivendo um problema bem parecido. Durante a produção de latas ou o desenvolvimento do software, sempre acontecia algum evento incerto que parava ou atrasava a produção, ou que atrasava ou aumentava o custo do projeto, deixando os donos das empresas e os clientes insatisfeitos. O Joaquim e a Ana ficavam frustrados com a ocorrência destes eventos incertos! Eles se questionavam se não haveria algo que poderia ser feito. Aí, eles começaram a buscar algo que pudesse ajudá-los a evitar ou diminuir as consequências dos tais eventos incertos. Eles descobriram que algo chamado gestão de riscos não era só coisa do mercado financeiro e que também poderia ajudar na solução deste problema. Eles queriam aprender mais sobre isto, mas também precisavam de flexibilidade para estudar, por causa do pouco tempo ou da falta de equilíbrio, e que alguém explicasse o conteúdo de estudo.

Foi então que o Joaquim e a Ana descobriram que os sete módulos do curso online “Uma Visão Geral da Gestão de Riscos” poderiam ajuda-los a compreender melhor sobre a gestão de riscos e sua aplicação no problema dos eventos incertos que os deixavam frustrados em seus trabalhos, e que também se encaixaria no tempo que eles tinham para estudar. Mas eles ficaram ainda mais estimulados quando viram que a gestão de riscos também poderia ser usada em suas vidas pessoais! Eles então tomaram a decisão de fazer o curso, cada um ao seu ritmo.

Não foi instantâneo, mas com dedicação e esforço, o Joaquim e a Ana começaram a entender melhor sobre a gestão de riscos e aos pouquinhos a aplicar na operação e nos projetos que eles trabalham (e nas suas vidas pessoais). Alguns eventos passaram de incertos a conhecidos, e tratados para evitar os danos que poderiam causar ou para explorar as oportunidades que eles poderiam trazer. O Joaquim ajudou ao planejamento da produção a identificar e trabalhar com uma flutuação no fornecimento de determinadas matérias-primas, e a Ana ajudou a identificar e tratar riscos que reduziram em 10% o estouro de custos em seus projetos. E eles continuam tentando melhorar.

Bem, todo mundo, incluindo eu e você, experimenta riscos que ameaçam nossos planejamentos de produção, projetos e nossos planos de vida pessoal. Mas o Joaquim, a Ana e eu estamos aplicando os conhecimentos em gestão de riscos para gerenciar e melhorar isto. Você também pode começar a mudar isso agora! Eu e o meu curso online “Uma Visão Geral da Gestão de Riscos” podemos contribuir para essa sua virada, te auxiliando a entender melhor cada etapa e elemento da gestão de riscos. E então? Eu te espero na primeira aula! Mas se ainda tiver dúvidas eu posso ajudar a esclarecê-las para você decidir. Até lá e boa jornada!

* Joaquim e Ana são personagens fictícios.

Quero conhecer melhor!

Original articles and content sharing

Informed Opinion versus Database as Risk Analysis Data Sources: the Traps of Each Source [Claudia Garrido]

(July 22, 2021) The motivation to write this text came from a reflection after a discussion on a post that I shared on a professional social media weeks ago about the availability bias. Some post replies went in another direction, pointing to the advantage of quantitative analysis and the premise that informed opinion is associated with risk qualitative analysis and database is associated with quantitative analysis. My point of view is that both types of data sources (i.e., informed opinion and database) can be used as input for both types of risk analysis and that every kind of data source has its traps. This text aims to briefly compare the issues using informed opinion or databases as data sources to analyze the risk.

Informed opinion is the data gathered through people's opinions, and it is subject to the effect of heuristics and bias. Although informed opinion is often the only input data source available or it comes from subject-matter experts, the heuristics mechanisms can affect the quality of the data gathered. Heuristics sometimes called a rule of thumb, are simple mind procedures that help find satisfactory answers to difficult questions. However, these answers are often imperfect, and these imperfections are biases or systematic errors (Kahneman 2011).

There are three main heuristics: availability, representativeness, and anchoring. The availability heuristic is affected by extreme or memorable events, and it usually drives to a super estimation of the risk. A judgment using stereotypes or similarities and ignoring the base rates is the representativeness heuristics. It can lead to excessively high or low-risk measures. Anchoring is affected by a particular value given before the estimation of the event. It may lead to the sub-estimation of the risk because people have difficulties thinking about distant values far from the base value.

The database input data can come in physical or electronic registers, and it is also subjected to issues, errors, or artifacts. Database issues can be related to scale type, noise, missing values, inconsistency, or redundancy (Moreira et al. 2018). Data errors are mainly problems from data acquisition (e.g., noise and missing data), and artifacts are systematic problems arising from processing (Skiena 2017). Therefore, it is necessary to perform data preparation, preprocessing or data cleaning before using the data from a database (Stanton and Graaf 2012; Provost and Fawcett 2013; Skiena 2017; Moreira et al. 2018).

In conclusion, any data source coming from people's informed opinions or databases for risk analysis (qualitative or quantitative) has its issues. The input data always depend upon what is available or the goal of the analysis. In many practice industries or companies, historical data is not available. The main point of this brief conversation is that any type of data input needs attention to avoid bias, data issues, or errors. We may need to rethink the idea that (1) informed opinion could only be used in qualitative risk analysis and (2) data coming from a database have higher quality than data coming from an informed opinion.

According to Kahneman (2011), we need to be aware that heuristics and bias may occur and try to apply methods to avoid their effect in collecting data. In the same way, we need to be aware that the data coming from a database can have issues and may need to be cleaned or preprocessed before use. A lot of studies and publications can be found exploring these aspects in depth. To explore more the elements of heuristics and bias, I would particularly recommend the studies produced by Tversky and Kahneman, the more recent publications from Kahneman, and some studies about decision-making. To learn more about data cleaning and preprocessing, I would recommend data science books. The quality of our risk analysis is directly related to the quality improvement of our input data.

#riskanalysis #informedopinion #heuristics #bias #riskinput

References

Kahneman D. 2011. Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Moreira J, Carvalho ACP de LF, Horváth T. 2018. A general introduction to data analytics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Provost F, Fawcett T. 2013. Data science for business: what you need to know about data mining and data-analytic thinking. 1. ed., 2. release. Beijing Köln: O’Reilly.

Skiena SS. 2017. The Data Science Design Manual. 1st ed. 2017. Cham: Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55444-0

Stanton J, Graaf RD. 2012. Introduction to Data Science. version 3.

Adam Grant: Rethinking Your Position [The Knowledge Project Podcast Ep. #112]

(July 19, 2021) Think...and rethink! According to Adam Grant, a Professor of Psychology at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, we need to rethink what we know and don't know. We need to be curious and be open to new learning. Adam Grant is also the author of the book Think Again, and in this podcast, he shares a little about his ideas.

Note: According to Dr. Grant, there are four modes of thinking: Preacher, Prosecutor, Politician, and Scientist. You can check a brief description of each thinking mode in this short post on Inc. There Are 4 Modes of Thinking: Preacher, Prosecutor, Politician, and Scientist. You Should Use 1 Much More.

#podcast #learning #thinking

The Availability Bias: How to Overcome a Common Cognitive Distortion [Farnam Street]

(June 7, 2021) "We tend to judge the likelihood and significance of things based on how easily they come to mind." (Farnam Street blog 2021)

– Mark invited John to dine at a Japanese restaurant. John answered that he doesn't like Japanese restaurants because his recent and single experience in a Japanese restaurant was awful.

– No one from Janet's acquaintance has experienced a car crash. Therefore, she believes that cars are safer than planes, even when statistics tell the opposite.

What do these two short stories have in common? They are both examples of availability bias in action! We all can be victims of availability bias (or availability heuristics), and it is more common than we can imagine. This blog post from the Farnam Street website explains availability heuristics in simple words and provides ways to mitigate the mind trap.

"We overestimate the likelihood of unlikely events. And we underestimate the likelihood of likely events." (Farnam Street blog 2021)

#decision-making #risk #availabilitybias #rationalchoice

New podcast recommendations [Claudia Garrido]

(May 1, 2021) Recently, I added new podcasts to my listening list. These podcasts were recommendations from other podcasts that I have been listening to for a while. See the list below:

Oh, The Call to Mastery (with Jordan Raynor) has been on my list for a while.

#leadership #decision-making #risk #riskmanagement

Watch out! Your Construction business might be under a cyber attack [Claudia Garrido]

(Oct 27, 2020) Lately, risk experts have talked more about cyber risks. One important thing that I've recently heard from one of these experts is that cyber risk is not an IT department matter only, but it should be a strategic concern. What about cyber risks in the Construction industry?

The Construction Industry has experienced an increase in the use of digital tools during the last years. The COVID-19 pandemic has also pushed their adoption and virtual collaboration with people working from their homes. The 2019 Aon Global Risk Management Survey Report shows that the completion of cyber risk assessment in the Construction industry raised from 36% in 2017 to 43% in 2019. It has a lot of room for improvement, and the increase in digitalization and virtual work increases the exposure to cyber risks. So, how prepared is your organization to avoid, mitigate, and respond to cyber-attacks? Can you imagine the BIM model of a strategic project being hacked? Are people in your organization aware of the potential of cyber attacks? I have personal experience with it. Around two years ago, I received an e-mail from the VP of a construction company in the U.S. The message had a sort of a professional invitation, but at the same time, the structure and language of the message sounded weird. I decided to check with the sender, and he/she answered me that he/she was hacked! He/she was the VP of a construction company, so you probably can imagine how many people got the same message and maybe clicked on the phishing message spreading the issue.

Yes, cyber attacks are escalating. We need to be aware of it and include them in our risk management strategies.

What do you think about cyber risks in the Construction industry? Share your thoughts, experience, and opinions. Please, keep the organization's name private.

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