Ep. 184: Daniel Armanios - The Future of Infrastructure

This episode is all about our 'built environment'. In other words, infrastructure – our roads, bridges, water system, and digital infrastructure. After listening to this one, it's more than likely that you will never think about this topic in the same way again. Think about when our roads and bridges were built. Who was in the room (often decades ago) making the decisions? What did they know? How do these decisions impact us today? What does that mean for current infrastructure decisions? A lot. Infrastructure can be viewed as 'institutional relics". Meet today's guest, Daniel Armanios. Daniel is the BT Professor of Major Programme Management at the University of Oxford's Säid Business School. His research and teaching integrates civil engineering with organisational sociology to better understand how organisations can coordinate to build, manage, and maintain infrastructure systems. Daniel is a super interesting guy – a Rhodes Scholar with a Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University, he is an interdisciplinary expert yet a practical thinker. He has amazing insights and this leads to a fascinating conversation.   We cover things like: How infrastructure decisions that are 'rational' can sometimes create unequal outcomes; Why it's important for those designing and building infrastructure to think about who they might be excluded – and how to do that; Infrastructure as an 'institutional relic'; Political turmoil; Risk and uncertainty in infrastructure; Risk-taking as an academic Show notes: Daniel Armanios Daniel on LinkedIn Daniel's inaugural lecture at the University of Oxford Daniel's research on bridges Flint Michigan water crisis Jackson Mississippi water crisis Cancer Alley Grenfell Tower Fire Pittsburgh Fern Hollow Bridge and its collapse Social sensing Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt Gerd Gigerenzer on heuristics Kathleen Eisenhardt on simple rules Agile methodology Boeing 737 max case _ _ _ _ _ _ _   Like what you heard? Subscribe and/or leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/1PjLmK Subscribe on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/all-things-risk/the-all-things-risk-podcast Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7z8jmcbiemLawrHmay65kH Follow the podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RiskThings Drop us a note: [email protected]  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Our free course module "How to Set Up Any Decision for Success" from our upcoming course How to Make Decisions With Calm and Confidence