USFWS/USGS Structured Decision Making Workshops

Target Audience:

Biologists, managers, and decision-makers with the responsibility to prepare, evaluate, or make decisions using scientifically based natural resources information. Workshop content is geared toward assisting biologists and managers working on complex problems involving uncertainty and challenging decisions.

Summary and Objectives

This workshop provides participants with skills required to develop structured approaches to natural resources decisions. Participants will be exposed to the concepts of critical thinking, logic, and decision analysis. The workshop emphasizes experiential learning combining mentoring lectures, exercises, case illustrations, and discussion.

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Understand the concepts and demonstrate the application of decision analysis and critical thinking techniques by providing participants with knowledge to decompose problems, analyze information, express uncertainty and use methods for addressing uncertainty in decisions, reach defensible conclusions, and prepare documents that describe process and reasoning that supports decisions. 
• Understand various decision tools to fit different decision problems, such as decision trees, multiple objective ranking techniques, and using expert panels.

Competencies Addressed: 

Decisiveness - Basic, Teamwork - Intermediate, Stakeholder Management - Basic, Oral Communication - Intermediate, Manages and Organizes Information - Intermediate