Structured Decision Making

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. The authors review key methods and discuss case-study examples based in our 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/sdm to access the figures and tables from the book.

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