Decision-making process of Nova Executivos’ students

Field lab: Consumer insights

Southern Modernisms. Critical Stances through Regional Appropriations. Conference proceedings

The hegemonic definition of Modernism has been subjected to an intense critical revision process that began several decades ago. This process has contributed to the significant broadening of the modernist canon by challenging its primal essentialist assumptions and formalist interpretations in the fields of both the visual arts and architecture. This conference aims to further expand this revision, as it seeks to discuss the notion of “Southern Modernisms” by considering the hypothesis that regional appropriations, both in Southern Europe and the Southern hemisphere, entailed important critical stances that have remained unseen or poorly explored by art and architectural historians. In association with the Southern Modernisms research project (FCT – EXPL/CPC-HAT/0191/2013), we want to consider the entrenchment of southern modernisms in popular culture (folk art and vernacular architecture) as anticipating some of the premises of what would later become known as critical regionalism. It is therefore our purpose to explore a research path that runs parallel to key claims on modernism’s intertwinement with bourgeois society and mass culture, by questioning the idea that an aesthetically significant regionalism – one that resists to the colonization of international styles and is supported by critical awareness – occurred only in the field of architecture, and can only be represented as a postmodernist turn. (...)

Nestle's dynamic forecasting process: Anticipating risks and opportunities

Nestlé’s Dynamic Forecasting Process: Anticipating Risks and Opportunities This Work Project discusses the Nestlé’s Dynamic Forecasting Process, implemented within the organization as a way of reengineering its performance management concept and processes, so as to make it more flexible and capable to react to volatile business conditions. When stressing the importance of demand planning to reallocate resources and enhance performance, Nescafé Dolce Gusto comes as way of seeking improvements on this forecasts’ accuracy and it is thus, by providing a more accurate model on its capsules’ sales, as well as recommending adequate implementations that positively contribute to the referred Planning Process, that value is brought to the Project

Analysis of a controversial decision process: the case of the pumped hydro storage power plant Atdorf in Germany

Based on the report for the unit “Métodos Interactivos de Participação e Decisão A” (Interactive methods of participation and decision A), coordinated by Prof. Lia Maldonado Teles de Vasconcelos and Prof. Nuno Miguel Ribeiro Videira Costa. This unit was provided for the PhD Program in Technology Assessment in 2015/2016.

An essay on agile project management practices

The main goals for the current dissertation is to research on how practices and concepts from Agile Project Management can be applied in a non-IT context and to discover which aspects should be considered when deciding if whether an Agile approach should be implemented or not. Previous studies reflect on the adoption for the identified context. However, the recognition of these practices and concepts by the Project Management field of studies still remains unresolved. The adoption of Agile Project Management emerges as a manifestation against traditional approaches, mainly due to their inability of accepting requirements’ changes. Therefore, these practices and concepts can be considered in order to reduce the risks concerning the increase of competition and innovation – which does not apply to the IT sector solely. The current study reviews the literature on Agile Project Management and its adoption across different sectors in order to assess which practices and concepts can be applied on a non-IT context. Nine different methods are reviewed, where two of these show a higher relevance – Scrum and Extreme Programming. The identified practices and concepts can be separated into four different groups: Cultural and Organizational Structures, Process, Practices, and Artefacts. A framework based on the work by Boehm & Turner in 2004 is developed in order to support the decision of adopting agile methods. A survey intended for project managers was carried in order to assess the implementation of the identified practices and concepts and to evaluate which variables have the highest importance on the developed decision support framework. It is concluded that New Product Development is the project type with the highest potential to implement an agile approach and that the Project Final Product’s Innovativeness, Competitiveness, and the Project Member’s Experience and Autonomy are the most important aspects to consider an implementation of an Agile approach.

Millennium BCP: Optimization of the branches closure process

Nowadays, a significant number of banks in Portugal are facing a bank-branch restructuring problem, and Millennium BCP is not an exception. The closure of branches is a major component of profit maximization through the reduction in operational and personnel costs but also an opportunity to approach the idea of “baking of future” and start thinking on the benefits of the digital era. This dissertation centers on a current high-impact organizational problem addressed by the company and consists in a proposal of optimization to the model that Millennium BCP uses. Even though measures of performance are usually considered the most important elements in evaluating the viability of branches, there is evidence suggesting that other general factors can be important to assess branch potential, such as the influx on branches, business dimensions of a branch and its location, which will be addressed in this project.

Assessing fraud risk of selecção, contratação e manutenção de fornecedores process of Sonae Investimentos

The present Work Project (WP) is the result of Sonae’s concern with fraud risk, seeking to implement a method that formally describes and evaluates it in its various forms. In a context of limited human, capital, time and tools’ resources, the Internal Audit (IA) department of the company developed a framework to raise the awareness of top management and identify which processes of its value chain present a higher level of exposure to fraud, with the purpose of redirecting attention to those and prioritizing the creation of new mechanisms to monitor its KPIs’ dynamics.

The role of information systems in business process redesign : a case of Turkish electricity market

This study is specifically concerned with the effect of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) on the Business Process Redesign (BPR). Researcher’s experience and the investigation on previous researches imply that BPR and ERP are deeply related to each other and a study to found the mentioned relation further is necessary. In order to elaborate the hypothesis, a case study, in particular Turkish electricity distribution market and the phase of privatization are investigated. Eight companies that have taken part in privatization process and executed BPR serve as cases in this study. During the research, the cases are evaluated through critical success factors on both BPR and ERP. It was seen that combining the ERP Solution features with business processes lead the companies to be successful in ERP and BPR implementation. When the companies’ success and efficiency were compared before and after the ERP implementation, a considerable change was observed in organizational structure. It was spotted that the team composition is important in the success of ERP projects. Additionally, when the ERP is in driver or enabler role, the companies can be considered successful. On the contrary, when the ERP has a neutral role of business processes, the project fails. In conclusion, it can be said that the companies, which have implemented the ERP successfully, have accomplished the goals of the BPR.

Valuing an offshore exploration project through real options analysis

This thesis applied real options analysis to the valuation of an offshore oil exploration project, taking into consideration the several options typically faced by the management team of these projects. The real options process is developed under technical and price uncertainties, where it is considered that the mean reversion stochastic process is more adequate to describe the movement of oil price throught time. The valuation is realized to two case scenarios, being the first a simplified approach to develop the intuition of the used concepts, and the later a more complete cases that is resolved using both the binomial and trinomial processes to describe oil price movement. Real options methodology demonstrated to be capable of assessing and valuing the projects options, and of overcoming common capital budgeting methodologies flexibility limitation. The added value of the application of real options is evident, but so is the method's increased complexity, which adversely influence its widespread implementation.