Programme overview
Introduction:
Organisations spend heavily on services, reminders and programmes that people ignore, delay or abandon, because they are designed for a fully rational user who does not exist. Behavioural economics explains the predictable shortcuts and biases behind these choices, and behavioural insights turn that evidence into practical changes to defaults, messages and processes. This Core Concept course shows practitioners how to diagnose a target behaviour, design choice architecture and nudges, test them with randomised trials and A/B tests, and apply them ethically. Participants leave with a Behavioural Intervention and Trial Plan for a live behaviour.
Course Objectives:
- Diagnose a target behaviour among customers, employees or citizens by mapping the heuristics, biases and friction points that drive it
- Design choice architecture changes such as defaults, framing, salience, social norms and timely prompts using the EAST framework
- Redesign letters, messages, forms and sign-up journeys to raise uptake, completion and on-time payment
- Plan a randomised controlled trial or A/B test with a clear control group, outcome measure and sample size
- Assess a proposed nudge for transparency, autonomy and sludge before it reaches customers or staff
- Produce a Behavioural Intervention and Trial Plan that sets out the behaviour, intervention, test design and scaling decision
Target Audience:
- Managers responsible for customer journeys, onboarding and service take-up
- Heads of collections, billing and revenue functions accountable for on-time payment and arrears
- HR and reward managers who run enrolment, benefits and workplace safety programmes
- Service design and digital product managers accountable for form completion and channel shift
- Strategy and transformation managers who commission behaviour change initiatives and judge their results
- Public service delivery managers responsible for citizen uptake of programmes and services
Course Outline:
Day 1: Behavioural Economics Foundations and Behaviour Diagnosis
- Bounded Rationality and the Limits of the Rational Choice Model
- System 1 and System 2 Processing in Customer, Employee and Citizen Choices
- Heuristics Catalogue: Anchoring, Availability and Representativeness
- Loss Aversion, Present Bias and Status Quo Bias in Uptake and Payment Behaviour
- Target Behaviour Definition and Behavioural Journey Mapping of a Service Process
Day 2: Choice Architecture, Nudges and Behavioural Frameworks
- Nudge Definition and Choice Architecture Design Principles
- Defaults, Framing, Salience and Simplification as Intervention Levers
- Social Norm Messages, Commitment Devices and Feedback Loops
- EAST Framework: Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely Intervention Checklist
- OECD BASIC Toolkit Stages From Behaviour Analysis to Intervention Design
Day 3: Applying Behavioural Insights to Customers, Employees and Citizens
- Sign-Up and Onboarding Journeys: Friction Audit and Reminder Sequences
- Letter, SMS and Email Redesign for On-Time Payments and Renewals
- Form Completion and Application Drop-Off Reduction Techniques
- Employee Behaviour Applications: Benefits Enrolment, Safety Reporting and Policy Compliance
- Behavioural Intervention Design Canvas and Testable Hypothesis Statement
Day 4: Testing Interventions, Nudge Ethics and Scaling
- Randomised Controlled Trial Design: Randomisation Unit, Control Group and Primary Outcome
- A/B Testing of Digital Messages: Sample Size, Statistical Power and Significance Checks
- Reading Trial Results: Effect Size, Subgroup Differences and Null Findings
- Ethics of Nudging: Transparency Test, Autonomy Safeguards and Sludge Audit
- Scaling and Replication: Implementation Fidelity and Effect Decay Monitoring
Day 5: Case Work and the Behavioural Intervention and Trial Plan
- Utility Billing Case File: Late Payment Reduction Through Reminder Redesign
- Workplace Savings Case File: Enrolment Uplift Through Default Options
- Public Service Case File: Online Application Completion and Drop-Off
- Behavioural Intervention and Trial Plan Drafting for a Live Organisational Behaviour
- Peer Review Panel Against EAST Checklist and Ethics Criteria
Skills You Will Gain:
- Behavioural Diagnosis
- Choice Architecture Design
- Behavioural Message Redesign
- Friction and Sludge Auditing
- Randomised Trial Design
- A/B Test Analysis
- Nudge Ethics Assessment
- Intervention Scaling Judgement
Why Attend This Course:
- Return with a Behavioural Intervention and Trial Plan for a real behaviour your organisation needs to change, reviewed by peers
- Replace guesswork about why customers and staff delay, drop out or pay late with a structured behaviour diagnosis
- Show sponsors hard evidence of what works by testing low-cost changes before rolling them out
- Work through billing, workplace and public service cases with practitioners from several sectors and countries
Conclusion:
People rarely behave as programme designs assume, but their departures from pure rationality are predictable and can be designed for. The course moves from bounded rationality, heuristics and biases, through choice architecture, nudges and the EAST and BASIC frameworks, to redesigning journeys, messages and forms, and then to randomised trials, A/B tests, ethical safeguards and scaling. The final day applies these methods to multi-sector case files and produces a Behavioural Intervention and Trial Plan that participants take back to their team.