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Clarifying the decision context involves defining what
decision is being made and why, as well as its relationship to
other decisions previously made or anticipated. If risks are
being ranked, why? How will the information be used in future
decisions? If a change in policy or management is under
consideration, what are the key drivers of the change and what
are the underlying policy objectives? What is the general scope
of alternatives under consideration and why? Gaining a clear and
common understanding the question is often harder than it seems,
but is key to working on the answer.
Roles and responsibilities should be clearly established,
including identification of the ultimate decision maker.
Stakeholders and key technical experts are identified, and their
role in the decision process defined.
It is also important to identify the constraints within which
the decision will be made. These might include, for example,
legal constraints, minimum performance requirements for selected
outcomes, or other constraints that have been established
through a prior decision process. The general range of
alternatives under consideration is identified (what is in and
out of scope), although not their specifics. Use caution in
defining constraints at this stage. While some decisions are
truly constrained by previous decisions, many apparent
"constraints" could really be relaxed or dropped to
facilitate a more wide-ranging search for creative options.
Further, some policy constraints embed critical value-based or
technical judgments that have never been truly examined, and are
pivotal to public policy decision at hand. These should be
identified; often reaching the best solution will mean
re-opening these for more rigorous and transparent analysis and
discussion.
Different decisions may have different outputs. In
some cases, the output may be the selection of a preferred
alternative from among a set of candidates. In others, it may be
the ranking of alternatives in a set. Alternatively, the
decision process may simply serve to screen out unacceptable
alternatives or identify acceptable ones. It can be used to
evaluate individual projects or initiatives, or to develop and
evaluate sets of projects - often termed strategies, packages or
portfolios. The decision process can also be used to screen,
rank or select various kinds of problems (as opposed to
alternatives) - e.g., hazards, communities or watersheds in
need, information gaps, etc. as a step toward prioritizing where
investments of time or resources should be made. In still other
cases, what is important is timing, and the decision process
will focus on strategies for making sequenced decisions. The
output of the decision process should be established up front.
A
great way to clarify the decision context is to hold a
"scoping" session involving key people that quickly
moves through all the steps of the SDM process in a one-day or
half-day workshop. This stage should culminate in a decision
charter or project plan that summarizes the approach to planning
and consultation that will be taken for the decision.
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Clarify what decision is being made, and why