Our current work clusters around three main, Evidence-based Innovations and three main areas of Outputs and Services, with more being added throughout the year.
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Evidence-Based Innovations
Behavioural Insights into Choice Architecture
Structuring the decision process facilitates better project and practice management by harnessing Design Thinking and Decision Science to encourage, enable, and support people to make better choices for themselves (CCS, 2021).
The innovation here involves translating existing research in and around the human influences on the decision-making process into specific project-based applications. BMF researches and develops a range of tools to make such work both applicable and accessible to a wider range of stakeholders in the built environment. We will also be signposting other people’s work that is relevant to practising professionals in the built environment.
Creating Value through Values-Framing
The first two of four Key Insights combine to form a decision structuring tool called Values-Framing. This involves the science of harnessing two specific behavioural insights: first identifying the foundational and enduring motivations known as human values, then characterising and communicating goals and choice options in terms of those values — or Values-Framing — in project or organisational contexts.
The innovation here involves two factors. First, the various characteristics and techniques involved in Values-Framing, a specific form of framing in the context of project sustainability decision-making. Second, the specific characteristic of decision-making involving individually-meaningful choice as the rationale behind, or purpose of, Values-Framing towards project sustainability improvements — the goal. Together, harnessing the two key factors of values and frames can create greater value for clients, stakeholders, and communities through sustainability.
Click Here to read more about Creating Value-via-Values. COMING SOON: download the Practical Guide.
Click Here to read more about Values-Framing. COMING SOON: download the Practical Guide.
Managing Meaningful Choices through Values-based Decision-making
The second two of four Key Insights combine to form a decision structuring and management tool called Decision Process Management. This involves the science of linking motivation (via values) with project planning and design communication (via frames) to facilitate more individually-meaningful choices (as both decision-making rationales and ‘outcomes’).
The innovation here also involves two factors. First, Values-Framing (i.e., by linking motivation (via values) with project planning and design communication (via frames)) to facilitate more individually-meaningful choices — as both decision-making rationales and ‘outcomes’. Second, involves managing the decision process from start to finish to ensure that client and stakeholder decisions about sustainability are, and remain, values-based and therefore more individually-meaningful. Because such choices are much more likely to withstand shifts and changes as projects progress.
Click Here to read more about Creating Meaningful Choice. COMING SOON: download the Practical Guide.
Click Here to read more about Managing Decision Processes. COMING SOON: download the Practical Guide.
Outputs and Services
Research: Evidence-based insights
Peer-reviewed, evidence-based research — the Gold Standard of knowledge creation — underpins the insights and innovations outlined on this website and inform the BMF Initiative. The insights offered, both here and in the future, are derived from nearly a decade of privately-funded ‘grounded’ empirical research, where all insights are based on the most plausible explanations for patterns found within and across the entire body of evidence — i.e., grounded in reality, rather than hypotheses concocted and tested by finding matching evidence (an approach prone to overlooking other plausible explanations which are entertained and tested in grounded approaches).
Click here to learn more about the underpinning research, evidence, and methods.
Practice Improvement: Translating research into practical guides
Academic research is notoriously impenetrable, written by scientists for scientists and therefore difficult to extract meaningful, applicable insights. To help overcome these potential barriers for research entering into day-to-day practice, one of the main reasons for establishing Building Meaningful Futures was to make academic research more accessible and applicable to day-to-day practice.
Significant advance work was undertaken to translate and explain how to apply the established, evidence-based innovations and interventions in your own context with your employees, clients, stakeholders, and projects. The outputs from this endeavour are outlined below.
Publications: From Exec Summaries to Deep Dives
To achieve the above-mentioned goal of making academic research more accessible and applicable, a series of publications has been devised to help you unpack, inspect, and apply the main, evidence-based insights and innovations:
- Issue Briefs: Executive Summaries on the big issues, problems, and challenges in need of action, including the range of options available to address these issues.
- Practical Primers: Introductions to the fundamentals of the key approaches, concepts, processes and applications to address the big issues.
- Practical Guides: Deeper dives into tools and techniques needed to apply the key insights and innovations to your own situation, project, and/or organisation.
The main Practical Guides are published here on this website, and the supporting Issue Briefs and Practical Primers are coming soon.
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