Structured Decision Making: A Practical Guide to Environmental Management Choices - Hardcover

Gregory, Robin; Failing, Lee; Harstone, Michael; Long, Graham; McDaniels, Tim; Ohlson, Dan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1444333410 ISBN 13: 9781444333411

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012

Synopsis

This book outlines the creative process of making environmental management decisions using the approach called Structured Decision Making. It is a short introductory guide to this popular form of decision making and is aimed at environmental managers and scientists.

This is a distinctly pragmatic label given to ways for helping individuals and groups think through tough multidimensional choices characterized by uncertain science, diverse stakeholders, and difficult tradeoffs. This is the everyday reality of environmental management, yet many important decisions currently are made on an ad hoc basis that lacks a solid value-based foundation, ignores key information, and results in selection of an inferior alternative. Making progress – in a way that is rigorous, inclusive, defensible and transparent – requires combining analytical methods drawn from the decision sciences and applied ecology with deliberative insights from cognitive psychology, facilitation and negotiation.

The authors review key methods and discuss case-study examples based in their experiences in communities, boardrooms, and stakeholder meetings. The goal of this book is to lay out a compelling guide that will change how you think about making environmental decisions.

Visit www.wiley.com/go/gregory/ to access the figures and tables from the book.

About this title

About the Author

Robin Gregory, Senior Researcher, Decision Research

Lee Failing, Principal, Compass Resource Management

Michael Harstone, Principal, Compass Resource Management

Graham Long, Principal, Compass Resource Management

Tim McDaniels, University of British Columbia

Dan Ohlson, Principal, Compass Resource Management

From the Back Cover

This book is about the creative and messy process of making environmental management decisions. The approach we describe is called Structured Decision Making, a distinctly pragmatic label given to ways for helping individuals and groups think through tough multidimensional choices characterized by uncertain science, diverse stakeholders, and difficult tradeoffs. This is the everyday reality of environmental management, yet many important decisions currently are made on an ad hoc basis that lacks a solid value-based foundation, ignores key information, and results in selection of an inferior alternative. Making progress – in a way that is rigorous, inclusive, defensible and transparent – requires combining analytical methods drawn from the decision sciences and applied ecology with deliberative insights from cognitive psychology, facilitation and negotiation. We review key methods and discuss case-study examples based in our experiences in communities, boardrooms, and stakeholder meetings. Our goal is to lay out a compelling guide that will change how you think about making environmental decisions.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1444333410
• ISBN 13: 9781444333411
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 314