Structured Decision Making and Adaptive Management
FANR 8800
3 hours
Structured Decision Making and Adaptive Management
Analytical Thinking
Communication
Creativity & Innovation
Critical Thinking
Leadership & Collaboration
Social Awareness & Responsibility
Course Description
We will consider the role of uncertainty in decision-making for natural resources. Students will be introduced to decision analysis and associated quantitative methods. Students will learn about the importance of models and effective stakeholder and rightsholder engagement to inform good decisions.
Athena Title
Structured Decision Making
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
Students will understand how collective recognition of uncertainty can help resolve conflicts that hinder effective natural resource management.
Students will be able to appreciate that a structured approach to decision-making improves the quality of decisions.
Students will understand why adaptive management is a valuable alternative to research for reducing uncertainty.
Students will gain experience with stakeholder engagement in an structured decision making setting, through an in-class workshop and labs.
Students will gain a basic understanding of quantitative techniques for examining decisions in the presence of uncertainty through applications or simulations.
Topical Outline
1. Introduction to Structured Decision Making
2. The Nature of Uncertainty (debate and discussion)
3. Uncertainty and Resilience (debate and discussion)
4. Framing the decision problem (the first 3 steps of SDM)
5. Lab / skills: Facilitation of an SDM workshop
6. Mock SDM workshop (3 sessions)
a. Problem framing and identifying the decision
b. Eliciting Objectives
c. Identifying alternatives
7. Consequences and Accounting for Uncertainty
8. Lab / skills: Introduction to simulation models
9. Lab / skills: Uncertainty in simulation modeling and cognitive bias
10. Lab / skills: Monte Carlo simulation
11. Tradeoffs, Uncertainty, and Multi-criteria Decision Analysis
12. Expert elicitation, tradeoffs, and risk assessment
13. Case studies of SDM and discussion with practitioners (2-3 papers)
14. Adaptive management 1: introduction to iterative decisions under uncertainty
15. Key Players in SDM and Adaptive Management
16. Updating models weights and reducing uncertainty
17. Case studies of Adaptive Management and discussion with practitioners (2-3 papers)
18. Lab / skills: optimization and expected value of perfect information
19. Conflict styles and conflict resolution in decision making
20. Incorporating Social Science into Decision Analysis
21. Discussion of ideas for AM final project
Institutional Competencies Learning Outcomes
Analytical Thinking
The ability to reason, interpret, analyze, and solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts.
Communication
The ability to effectively develop, express, and exchange ideas in written, oral, interpersonal, or visual form.
Creativity & Innovation
The capacity to combine or synthesize existing ideas, images, or expertise in original ways and the experience of thinking, reacting, and working in an imaginative way characterized by innovation, divergent thinking, and risk taking.
Critical Thinking
The ability to pursue and comprehensively evaluate information before accepting or establishing a conclusion, decision, or action.
Leadership & Collaboration
The capacity to engage in the relational process of optimizing personal and collective strengths toward a common goal.
Social Awareness & Responsibility
The capacity to understand the interdependence of people, communities, and self in a global society.
