adaptive management

Time for a New Department of Public Lands?

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An old adage says, “Form follows function.” In my experience with the federal government it often works the other way around, i.e. Function follows form. Consider “collaborative engagement.” If you survey the landscape, you’ll often find the Forest Service attempting collaboration, while at the same time so is the Bureau of Land Management, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Park Service, etc. Each attempts to develop policy (often via planning) by “considering the needs” of adjacent land holdings, but they still do it for the most part alone. In single-agency collaboration and planning, function follows form.

Is it time to rethink federal agency “form” in the ongoing movement toward collaborative engagement in public lands management? In particular, is it time to rethink how the federal government functions in these deliberations? Is is time to relearn how form ought to follow function?

Along with many others I have argued that it proves inefficient for each federal agency to attempt ecosystem management deliberations by themselves—whether for assessment, policy development, action, or monitoring. It also proves frustrating for collaborators. Too many forums, too many meetings, etc. At a time when all eyes are on the federal government to trim its budget, why not, one again, hope for high-level reorganization.

A Department of Public Lands

Maybe it is time for a Department of Public Lands. Such a Department could effectively set up appropriate forums for collaborative engagement in public lands policy and action, in concert with state and local officials, and other collaborators.

If the Obama Administration plays its cards right during upcoming budget deficit battles, we might see it make a move toward a cabinet-level Department of Public Lands, complimented with a sister Department for Environmental Regulation. This second Department would serve to separate land management from regulatory policy and enforcement—an idea that we will leave for a later post.

Setting up a new Department of Public Lands would take the Forest Service out of the Department of Agriculture and allow it to start anew as a division or agency in the new department—in concert with The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management, The Park Service, etc. (It would probably be good to once-again consider combining the Forest Service with the Bureau of Land Management, as well.)

Such reorganization would allow for a fresh start, whereby the new Department of Lands and all its agencies could be chartered for collaborative engagement in adaptive management. (Or maybe just move the Forest Service into the Department of Interior, and follow a similar plan.) In the former case legislators and the Administration would have to work up new organic legislation, etc. But it is likely time to refresh “organic” framing anyway.

Either way, with a new Department of Public Lands or with the Forest Service moved into Interior, the public wins in at least five ways: First, outdated, bureaucratic agencies can be set up with structures and functions that work for the new century—championing collaborative engagement for conservation, preservation, and use. Second, the Department could field many questions about larger-scale management that are not well fielded under current structure. Third, many mid-level staff personnel, e.g. Forest Service Regional and National staff members, might be better positioned as Departmental positions. Why? So that when collaborators work out the regional assessment, action, and monitoring, the federal government will not be so fractured as it now is. Fourth, the taxpayers win as there should be fewer personnel in a Department so structured. Finally, more money can go to the field, where infrastructure and other needs have been neglected for too long.

Why Now?

There will never be a better time to think about this idea, since many mid-level (and high-level) Forest Service employees are near the end of their careers—i.e. no massive layoffs needed. So too with other land management agencies.

Why might it work now? Because in the next few years there will be many discussions on how to trim the federal deficit and whittle-down the national debt. This may give President Obama a chance to do what so many others have failed to do: bring the Forest Service into line with other federal land and resource management agencies. In doing so, Obama might make history by charting a new course for federal lands management.

Note: Jeff DeBonis and I offered up a similar suggestion early in the Clinton Administration. Ours was just one of many similar suggestions made through the years. The suggestions have never gained traction. Maybe this time will be different. Or maybe not.

Is A New Rule Worth It?

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I went back and looked at the 2009 Notice of Intent today to refresh my memory regarding why implementing a new rule is so important to the Forest Service. From the NOI:

Developing a new rule will allow the Agency to integrate forest restoration, watershed protection, climate resilience, wildlife conservation, the need to support vibrant local economies, and collaboration into how the Agency manages national forests and grasslands, with the goals of protecting our water, climate, and wildlife while enhancing ecosystem services and creating economic opportunity.

I’m wondering, what is it about the existing rule that doesn’t allow the national forests to do this?  While the current language might not be very good at requiring some of these things, it certainly doesn’t prohibit them.  Any national forest is free to write a plan that attempts to do all of these things.

Sure, current requirements for things like designating and monitoring management indicator species (MIS) don’t work as originally envisioned and probably are largely as waste of time and money.  But most forests have figured out apporaches that can survive a legal challenge.

Some forests such as the National Forests in Mississippi are developing plans right now that meet the existing rule requirements while incorporating new approaches such as a framework for ecosystem diversity. The rule doesn’t require it, but it makes sense and has widespread support.

What challenges will a forest developing a plan under the new rule face?  How about legal challenges to the list of items in Martin’s post “We’ll Consider It” ?

Does the forest plan appropriately consider “various stressors or impacts?” How about “the physical (including air quality) and biological integration of the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems within a landscape.” How well does the plan take into account “other forms of knowledge”, and so on down the list?

All of these points will be debated in the courts, just as MIS, viability, and monitoring have been since NFMA was signed into law. We won’t know what they really mean until the judges tell us.

Dave commented on Martin’s post  that:

In talking with two FS planning directors earlier this week, both seemed more intent on fixing “planning” via rule implementation than in fixing the “rule.” This is unfortunate in my estimation.

The “rule” ought to have framed things up for whatever follows re: national forest management. Instead, it appears that the rule development process is now largely viewed by many in the FS as a “throwaway,” so that they can get on with “God’s work” whatever the flavor of that might be this year.

I agree that it is unfortunate. It really is time for a new rule.  From where I sit, I would like to see a rule that goes  further in terms of establishing the kind of adaptive management approach that Dave talks about. I would like to see a rule that speeds up the process and eliminates some of the requirements that most of us agree don’t make sense anymore. I would like to see a rule that requires all of the considerations in Martin’s list and perhaps a few more.

But if I were a beleaguered forest planner, I might prefer to take my chances with the devil I know rather than one I don’t.

Why Three Planning Levels?

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Anyone who has followed this blog knows that I am fond of talking about adaptive management (here) and railing against planning. (here, here, here). Sometimes both at once. Today I puzzle, once again, over why the Forest Service insists on three levels of planning: national, forest, and project or activity. Note: it used to be four levels, adding “regional”, but that is likely a trivial point. I ask: Why? Why? Why?

So I decided to try and understand how this particular three-level planning scheme came to be. “National” is understandable, at least in some contexts—particularly budgeting and organizational accountability, and some policy development. “Project or activity” is where work gets done. Logical enough, at least for budgeting and work planning and accountability. But I don’t know what role such plays in a forest plan, unless we are taking about the “loose leaf compendium” that the Clinton-era Committee of Scientists recommended.

“Forest”? That too makes sense for budgeting and work accountability, etc. Remember the “cut and sold” reports, during the good old go-go timbering days? I do — painfully! But there again I can’t quite wrap my mind around ecosystem/social system planning or management at this “level”, unless we are once again talking about the “loose-leaf compendium” for administrative purposes. But even here the case for a “forest” level of planning is weak. Better to work toward planning at scales where “sense of place” and/or “sense of purpose” are in play. These type scales often cross forest borders, and often include other than forest service lands.

Finally, I began to think through the history of the Forest Service and in particular try to better understand the run-up via controversy to the National Forest Management Act (1976), following in the heels of the then recently passed Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974. Not much help there. NFMA mandates a “forest plan” but doesn’t require the type forest plan the forest service keeps writing into its “rules.” Note that the timber sale, etc. restrictions in the NFMA can still be applied even with the COS “loose-leaf compendium” notion of a forest plan.

For completeness, here is what the Clinton-era Committee of Scientists recommended, in part (from Proposed Summary of COS Report, Feb 9, 1999):

The NFMA calls for development of an integrated land- and resource-management plan for each national forest and grassland. In our approach the integrated plan is the assemblage of all policies and decisions affecting an administrative unit. It can include regional guidance for conservation strategies relevant to the area; the strategic vision, policies, and multiple-use goals developed through large landscape planning, including the description of the desired future conditions; proposed management pathways for achieving the desired future condition and multiple-use goals; implementing decisions and proposed project-level management activities developed at the small-landscape level; and sufficient records and documentation from monitoring to support ongoing adaptive management. As the foundation of administrative policy and guidance, this planning documentation also should include the budget and staffing needs for implementation as well as the procedures and timing of monitoring and review processes. As a management tool, the plan not only includes monitoring processes, but also records ongoing results and subsequent changes in both strategic and implementation decisions.

In the past, the use of administrative units as the planning units often caused large-scale ecological, economic, and social processes to be neglected or resulted in inconsistent decisions by adjacent administrative units. Therefore, the Committee suggests a planning and decision-making hierarchy whose geographic extent will often not be limited to the boundaries of a particular national forest or grassland but whose physical repository will rest at [sic] within multiple administrative units.

Thus, the land- and resource-management plan should be in the form of a loose-leaf notebook that contains all of the policy directions, strategies, and implementation proposals from decisions that have been made at all levels of the planning process. It is the official repository of decisions big and small that have been made and reviewed in the strategic and landscape-level planning processes. It must also contain the monitoring methodologies that will be implemented as well as the evaluation results from monitoring. Because this model of the land- and resource-management plan is different than that employed during the first round of NFMA planning, the process of plan amendment is also different. Rather than a formal process involving review and comment, these loose-leaf plans are dynamic and evolving, readily reflecting and accommodating the outcomes of adaptive management. Thus, as decisions are revisited and revised in response to changing social understanding, natural and social events, and policy priorities, the loose-leaf notebook immediately reflects those changes. Consequently, any “amendments” made to these plans reflect decisions that have been made and reviewed elsewhere.

I find no fault with the COS recommendations! I’m just puzzled why they are not on the table this time around. I am well aware that these recommendations were developed at the very end of Clinton’s term of office, and the incoming George W. Bush Administration moved quickly to nullify all that they could that were marked by Clinton’s footprints. (including the 2000 NFMA Rule (pdf)). Why were they not followed in the 2000 rule development?

I’m puzzled. Maybe some of you who are smarter than I can help me understand what the hell is going on here with these bizarre “three levels”? And what has been going on since 1979. What were/are the drafters of these various rules thinking? Is it just “Tradition”? (Like in Fiddler on the Roof), i.e. the language was there in 1979 rule, so it will stay until hell freezes over. Something else? Can it be justified today?

Update: As Sharon points out in comments, the 1999 Committee of Scientists Report is available on the sidebar. Here the Synopsis: pdf

Adaptive Co-Management- Exploring Our Future

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Here are some links contributed by Lynn Jungwirth and her thoughts…

This, I think, is where we are going with forest planning efforts……. I think this is what TNC is doing with their Fire Learning Networks….creating learning networks. The Berkes article contrasts decision making collaborative with learning collaborative and puts them in the context of adaptive management….so now, the term is “adaptive co-management”. I think the jig is up in terms of thinking that there are natural systems and social systems……7 billion people puts us at eco-socio systems…..and these guys are trying to figure out what is emerging in terms of “bright spots” of success for that…

Here are the papers she sent Hill.etal_2010_adaptive.co-management_Australia, Cundill.and.Fabricius_2010_adaptive.monitoring and Berkes_2009_adaptive.co-management.

Clearly landscape scale collaboration is the way to go.. as so many currently funded initiatives in the federal agencies would attest. They are almost too numerous to list.

It may take a while to read the above papers for all of us busy people, but I’d be interested in hearing from readers in the next few weeks.. which ideas do you think are the most key to have in forest planning (or in a forest planning rule) and why?

Harnessing the Power of the Many: Is the Forest Service Effectively Using the Internet?

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Last weekend, I was recreating with family and got quizzed on a specific hazard tree removal project. Why did they leave the slash? Couldn’t they cut it up for firewood? Don’t they know how bad it looks near a major trailhead?

I certainly don’t know what the answers were, though I had ideas. Then when I got home, I noticed this essay from Bob Berwyn about another project. This is definitely worth a read, as Bob writes about his observations and questions about this project and its design. It’s true that Bob knows more than an average passerby; but it seems like we should be encouraging public interest and questions as a learning experience- even an approach to science (or conservation) education.

It’s great that people are interested in projects, but I have to wonder if in this day and age we could have some simple “how this project was designed and why” that could be linked to Google Earth.

Like the trailheads are on the Fourteeners website here. In general, the Fourteeners website tells you everything you want to know about those trails. You can also scan the trip reports to find out the latest conditions.

I wonder what it would take to start something like this for FS recreation or all lands recreation? Just think- you could find out that campgrounds and dispersed sites were full without driving around. You could find out that the roads or trail is still closed with snow. We could harness the power of the people who are out there (many, many more people than employees) simply by providing a place for them to leave comments.

The Park Service has visitor observation of trail conditions for Rocky Mountain National Park, so it is possible for feds to do such things (although it is kludgier than 14ers.com, in my view).

What if the Forest Service could harness the power of the internet to 1) tell the story of our projects, 2) keep visitors apprised of recreation conditions, and 3) to do some kinds of monitoring (OHVs off trails, regeneration, ?).

Do people have examples of forests and districts who have done some creative work in this arena? Please share.

Forest Service Sins of Omission and Commission

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Let’s deal with “sins of commission” first, since these are more easily seen. We humans are not good at dealing with surprise. It gets worse when we are surprised by our own failings as pointed out by others. The sad tale of the US Forest Service’s continuing inability to deal with failures pointed out over decades by the environmental community is testament to this failing. There are sometimes private admissions of error, but where are the organizational admissions that translate to inbuilt policy shifts and organizational behavior changes?

I will never forget a conversation I overheard one day just outside the Auditor’s Building (FS Headquarters). Associate Chief George Leonard, arguably the most powerful FS player of the day was just ahead of me, talking with a companion. As the conversation turned toward the over-cut Pacific Northwest, Leonard remarked, “We did cut the shit out of the Olympic National Forest.” There it was, a personal admission of guilt. Unfortunately, only grudgingly and without overt policy shifts, did the Forest Service change its ways. This is understandable, because as Herb Kaufman (author of The Forest Ranger) predicted, the Forest Service has become a rigid, unchangeable force: a blind bureaucracy. That brings us to “sins of omission”, what you don’t see you can’t fix.

As bad as we humans are in dealing with surprise, we are worse at dealing with our own ignorance. Among the most important things the Forest Service has missed in its ignorance, is that bureaucracy must be managed and must be led. In order for both to be effective – remembering that the two need to be jointly and thoughtfully applied for successful organizing – they must be studied and talked about regularly. They must also be practiced. How was this missed? Note: The problem is much bigger than the US Forest Service. Only in the past few years have I realized how utterly blind and mismanaged are other agencies of the US Government, including the CIA, the NSA, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, SEC, the FTC, and so on.

Right now, supposedly, the top brass in the Forest Service is working with Bill Isaac’s Dialogos group to begin a journey to right what has heretofore been undiscussed and undiscussable, what I have elsewhere called “the management trap”. (See also this on the 2007 Dialogos report on the FS.) But little light (insight) from that effort has trickled down to the rank and file in the Forest Service. And, so far, little if anything has been done to change in internal working of the FS bureaucracy. Or maybe I’ve just not seen it from my “retirement” perch. Is anything being learned? If so, can individual learning translate into organizational learning?

Over a decade ago, I challenged the Forest Service to rethink its stance on management, leadership and learning. Here is a bit of what I offered-up:

In searching out answers, we would do well to read among the many good books written on “planning as social learning” and “planning as organizational learning,” and also among the many good books on “adaptive management.” It’s always dangerous to single out one book, but what the hell. I heartily endorse Lance Gunderson , C.S. Holling, and Stephen Light. 1995. Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions. Within even this one book there are many lessons yet to be learned about ecosystems, institutions and the boundaries that both separate and integrate them. Space doesn’t permit, but we ought not overlook the contributions of organizational learning writers like Chris Argyris, Arie De Geus, Joseph Jaworski, Donald Schon, Peter Schwartz, Peter Senge, and Karl E. Weick. Even if we could figure out a thoughtful approach to organizational learning and adaptive management, we still have to tackle the problem of working politics that Lee defines as “gyroscope” [in Compass and Gyroscope]. This is a lesson well known to Gunderson and friends, but a lesson yet to be learned by the Forest Service.

Later, I reprocessed my plea as a “process gridlock” suggestion:

Do we continue to operate our organization in an antiquated parent/child organizational framework? Do we continue to operate from a belief that running an organization always or most frequently requires use of power-over instead of power-with?

If we answer yes, as I believe we must, why not rethink our organization? We might begin with workshops or “inquiry sessions” for Line Officers, WO Directors, and Regional and Forest Staff Officers. The workshops would focus on how organizations function based on a premise of working with adults, rather than overseeing children. (See generally the literature on ‘Learning Organizations.’)

Sure we have rules and regulations dictated by law and policy that emanate from domains ‘above’ the agency in the US government that require certain things from us. Sure we have encumbrances (also opportunities) on ‘personnel management’ different from private sector organizations. And so on. But that ought not to stop us from reevaluating our organization functions in light of emerging organizational theory/practice.

As I’ve done before, I recommend that you bring in Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe, Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, Margaret Wheatley and/or Peter Senge. You may want to include Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot as well. Let this group suggest recommendations on how to structure such inquiry sessions as well as on other organizational betterment ideas.

I reiterate my plea, that the Forest Service begin to reevaluate the agency’s approach to policy-making, management, and leadership. There is simply no way to effect better planning policy-making, and administration, if there is no substantial changes in extant bureaucracy. Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot were among the early proponents of such change. See Pinchots’ The End of Bureaucracy. Unfortunately they didn’t employ the proverbial 2×4 approach. You remember. The story goes something like this:

A farmer went to the State Fair and watches a muleskinner driving some mules in
the plowing contest. He’s got one mule in the lead harness that seems really
smart, doesn’t balk, works hard, has strength and leads the other mules so the
farmer buys the mule and takes it home only to discover that the mule laid down
and couldn’t be made to work.

The farmer and his wife finally drag the mule into the back of the farm wagon,
and the farmer goes back to the Fair. The farmer finds the muleskinner and
starts yelling that he’s been cheated. That mule won’t move, let alone pull the
plow.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” says the muleskinner, “I forgot to give you the rest of the
gear.” With that the muleskinner picks up a big piece of 2×4 and bangs the mule
a good hard blow to the side of the head. The mule scrambles up and looks as if
he just can’t wait to git started.

“Yes Sir,” says the muleskinner, “This is a really good mule. You just have to
get his attention.” He hands the 2×4 to the farmer and sends him home.

The next day, the farmer walks toward the mule carrying the 2×4, but before the
farmer can lay it across the side of the mule’s head, the mule scrambles up and
gets to work and drags the other mules up, too. Best damn mule the farmer ever
had.

The problem is, who can deliver a “policy-making, management, and leadership” wake-up 2×4?
Or maybe such has been delivered via Dialogos and others. If so, when will we begin to see the effects?

Trigger Itch

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As Sharon writes, I have raised the possibility of using “triggers and thresholds” in some sort of adaptive management framework:  Here is the statement I made at last week’s science forum:

 One possible approach to this problem [how to practice adaptive management in the modern regulatory state] is to consider using some type of pre-negotiated commitments in an adaptive management framework.  These enforceable commitments would specify what actions will be taken by the agency if monitoring information shows X or Y.  In other words, some predetermined decisions, or more general courses of action, are built into the adaptive framework from the beginning (i.e., if this, then what).  Not every possible scenario can be prefigured of course, but having some thresholds or trigger mechanisms built into an adaptive framework might alleviate concerns about the amount of discretion ostensibly needed by agencies to plan and manage adaptively.

In retrospect, perhaps it’s wise to stay away from the term “threshold” because of its scientific usage and debate.  But triggers should still be considered by the agency.  I think the approach might work best in particular management situations, especially those that have an implementation monitoring program in place. 

I don’t think the approach is that uncommon actually.  Consider, for example, a report written by Chuck Quimby of USFS on using adaptive management options within a NEPA process focused on grazing (sorry, don’t have a PDF or link).  He discusses how various adaptive management options can be worked into EIS alternatives. 

Or consider various state wolf management plans whereby states commit to so many packs, and if monitoring shows they drop below some predetermined floor, a different suite of managerial requirements kick-in (more conservative wolf management). 

And to show that such an approach can cut in multiple directions consider the “adaptive timber management strategy” as used by the Tongass NF.  That strategy basically sets various triggers regarding timber harvesting and industrial development in SE Alaska.  If particular objectives are met, then additional roadless areas are opened for more harvesting.  This approach, if I recall correctly, was basically used by the Tongass as a way to more strategically open roadless lands for harvesting—rather than offering multiple sales in multiple roadless areas.  (Of course, conservationists see this as a complete bastardization of the AM approach, but it does demonstrate how adaptive management needs a purpose—it’s a means to an end—and that end needs to be defined by using NEPA). 

The approach could also be used in some restoration plan.  The USFS chooses a plan alternative (using NEPA) that emphasizes restoration.  Within that alternative are embedded a number of adaptive management options.  So, for example, if various restoration objectives are met by some date, then the agency will offer additional stewardship contracts in the following locations. 

 And one more hypothetical:  The USFS chooses a travel management alternative that connects two existing routes for OHV use.  Embedded within that alternative is an adaptive management option:  if an area adjacent to the connected route becomes illegally used and degraded, the new connected route shall be discontinued and decommissioned. 

 Sharon is right, however, because there will be lots of debate about where these trigger points are set.  (This has been a big issue in oil and gas planning and impacts to Grouse in Wyoming).  I imagine in most cases they will simply be politically negotiated, and in others scientists will be given a larger role to play (if used in the wildlife context). 

Martin Nie

When We Just Don’t Know

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I have often wondered why Forest Service scientists and managers talk about risk and uncertainty, yet don’t wander into the territory of “novelty, surprise, and ignorance.” My studies in decision-making and economics inform me that risk and uncertainty are the domains of games where probability distributions are well-known. Another realm, the realm of novelty, surprise, and ignorance is where many business and organizational management decisions live. That is why I’m often railing about “wicked problems”, and about how to make sense of the organizational, environmental, and social contexts we dwell in. Today I want to explore the wilds of “organizational ignorance.” In short, I want to take a look at what to do when we just don’t know.

To make my case, I want to examine a little article that I found a few years ago on the subject, titled Managing Organizational Ignorance, by Michael Zack. The only time I mentioned it before on internet chatter, best I can tell, was when the Forest Service was trying to wed Planning with Environmental Management Systems. (my Forest Service EMS/Planning blog chronicles are here). Here is what I said:

[A]s we continue on this EMS journey maybe we ought to spend more time exploring novelty, surprise and ignorance. Study adaptive management, and read in detail books like Panarchy, Supply Side Sustainability, Compass and Gyroscope, Discordant Harmonies, and more. And don’t forget to wander over and read Michael Zack’s Managing Organizational Ignorance—either right now, or later after you’ve worked yourself into a frenzy over EMS and come up short.

Zack begins with one of my favorite quotes, from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, “Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?” [Note: Postman’s book ought to be required reading for everyone in the U.S.—to better understand our current plight w/r/t ignorance]

Zack builds his thesis around four knowledge-processing problems, each describing a unique form of “organizational ignorance”:

  • Uncertainty: not having enough information;
  • Complexity: having to process more information than you can manage or understand;
  • Ambiguity: not having a conceptual framework for interpreting information;
  • Equivocality: having several competing or contradictory conceptual frameworks.

Each problem describes a particular form of organizational ignorance, calling for a particular knowledge-processing capability. Each in some way also represents a fundamental organizational or strategic management problem. Taken together they define the range of knowledge processing capabilities an organization must have to manage its ignorance effectively. These four knowledge problems can be categorized along two axes: 1) the nature of the knowledge being processed, and 2) whether the solution is to acquire more knowledge or to place restrictions on what you have.

Here is Zack’s table, summarizing the relationship between the knowledge problems and information processing (gathering, restricting, analyzing, etc.):

Zack sums up with:

The four knowledge-problems framework provides a powerful lens for viewing information processing, communication, and knowledge management in organizations. It suggests several prescriptions and conclusions.

  • Organizations must be open to novelty and anomaly. Only by acknowledging its ignorance can an organization put itself on the road to learning. Organizations must recognize and accept that there are events that may be difficult to explain because no one understands them well enough. …
  • Knowledge management today focuses primarily on solving problems of complexity and uncertainty. It aims to share and exploit what is known within well-defined circumstances and contexts, and is dominated by information technology. Expert systems apply codifiable but highly complex sets of rules; best practice databases attempt to share less structured but well-documented expertise; point of sale systems attempt to provide rapid feedback for managing market uncertainty, while e-mail and discussion databases do the same for internal uncertainty. Much less effort has been spent worrying about the ambiguous and equivocal situations resulting from more profound forms of organizational ignorance. To truly manage knowledge and expertise, however, organizations must make sure that their members work toward building a shared fundamental understanding of the situations and problems they face. Meetings and teams, as well as informal opportunities for engaging in sense-making conversations that raise good questions, challenge the status quo, and directly deal with ambiguity and equivocality are all essential. Solving convergent, well-defined problems requires having a shared understanding in place first. It is therefore critical for organizations to be aware of and to solve problems of ambiguity and equivocality before diving into the more structured problems of uncertainty and complexity.
  • Information technology can play an important role in managing information and knowledge, when it is appropriately applied. This requires diagnosing the nature of the knowledge problem beings solved. Information technology makes sense in cases of uncertainty and complexity, but much less so for dealing with ambiguity and equivocality
  • Organizations need to go beyond their own boundaries to find the knowledge they need to help them make sense of the world. Where the organization is relatively ignorant…, it should include [constituents] in the sense-making process. In doing so, the organization will also develop a shared understanding and basis for ongoing communication with its [constituents]. As ambiguity and equivocality give way to uncertainty and complexity, the organization can more easily migrate to more structured technologies to communicate and coordinate with its external partners. … Organizations may use information technology to exchange data and information, but they will need to use social interaction to exchange knowledge in building a shared understanding about their commercial relationships.
  • Senior executives and managers must interact freely with those at lower levels of the organization in sensemaking and problem-solving processes to discover what the organization as a whole truly knows. It is not enough for managers merely to catalog organizational knowledge by creating a “knowledge map.” Rather, they must sense the organization’s knowledge and ignorance by engaging all organizational levels in the process of resolving the four knowledge problems.
  • Like managing knowledge, managing organizational ignorance requires an appropriate culture. In general, the organization must create an environment in which it is acceptable to publicly admit that one does not know something. Multinational organizations I have observed find this to be particularly problematic in certain national cultures. Managing complexity requires a culture in which it is acceptable to identify and support experts and seek their advice. Resolving uncertainty requires a culture supportive of open, clear and extensive cross-boundary communication, and a willingness and ability to bridge various languages (both professional and national) in use across the organization. Resolving ambiguity requires the ability to confess ignorance and confusion. Managing equivocality requires an environment in which it is acceptable to disagree about interpretations and which accepts diversity of views as well as useful and productive consensus.
  • Each of the four knowledge problems suggests a different set of processes, roles, information technologies, and organizational structures for their resolution. … Often … problems are intertwined. [An organization] must be flexible enough to modify itself dynamically to deal with the knowledge problem at hand. …
  • Even the non-routine or unpredictable aspects of the four problems can be managed, or at least anticipated, in a routine fashion. Where ambiguity or equivocality routinely arises, organizations should create standing mechanisms to address them. Provisions must be made for face-to-face conversations to occur among those most relevant to resolving ambiguity or equivocality. Those responsible for executing the resulting interpretations must also be involved so that those interpretations can be meaningfully communicated. Uncertainty can be routinely handled by anticipatory mechanisms for exchanging information; complexity can be handled by anticipatory mechanisms for locating knowledge.
  • The four problems suggest a framework for managing organizational learning. Ambiguous and equivocal problems often represent non-routine events about which the organization lacks sufficient knowledge. The process of resolving ambiguity and equivocality, however, is the stuff of which organizational learning is made. Ambiguous and equivocal events, if encountered enough times, eventually become familiar enough to be migrated to more routine processes. Organizations must have the ability to evaluate events to determine if they are interpretable or not, route them to the appropriate resolution process, and eventually migrate those that become familiar to routine processes, thereby reserving the organization’s capacity to continually handle novelty and confusion. [Emphasis (bold) added by Iverson]

Is the Forest Service ready to deal with Zack’s four knowledge-processing problems? Do they help make better sense of “ignorance problems” than traditional rhetoric of “risk and uncertainty”? Have Forest Service managers/scientists/staffers already been dealing with these problems albeit in different frames? In short, what do you think?

Stickin’ to the Science- Models and More

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John has done a fantastic job of summarizing the panelists’ presentations at the Science Forum. However, I think we need to carefully watch what is claimed as scientific information, especially when that information tends to be uniquely privileged and thus can remove debate from the democratic, public sphere if it becomes a “science” issue. “Science” at its extreme, can become an ever-broadening mantle that can run to personal experiences of scientists, pontification by scientists, and so on.

But what is scientific information, given the variety of fields involved in a complicated field like natural resource management? “Science” can be models, field measurements, interviews with people, GIS exercises, and so on.
Scientific information gets its privileged status from claims of objectivity and physical and biological reality.

So here are some of my impressions, as a scientist and an observer of the science enterprise. First of all, I think modelers cannot be objective about models. No more than botanists can be objective about plants, or wildlife biologists about wildlife. There is an inherent connection between love of a thing and choosing it as a vocation. A good scientist, like a good manager, has a fire in her/his belly for the work. One ecologist notably said “ecosystems are more complex than we think, they are more complex than we can think.” I actually think that that is a paraphrase of J.B.S. Haldane, who said “the universe is queerer than we think, it is queerer than we can think.” How can we believe that they are more complex than we can think, and yet expect managers and the public to put energy into consideration of model outputs without independent empirical evidence that predictions are somewhat accurate?

Role of modeling in forest planning

Nevertheless, the scientists involved in modeling focused on models. Dr. Williams, who runs monitoring programs but is probably not one of the modeling community, focused on monitoring and real world observations, due to uncertainty and the complexity and potential unmodelability of complex systems. I agree with his emphasis on observations. Is that related to the fact we don’t work in models? Does the fire in the belly come as a precursor, or an effect, of working on something like models?

It is the essential conundrum of science – those who know the most have the most inherent conflict of interest in the importance and utility of their work. As the expression goes, if all you have is a hammer…everything looks like a nail.

I think we need to have more serious discussions about the appropriate role of models when there is as much uncertainty as there is about the future. From the science perspective, no doubt, models can synthesize existing information and they are useful to inform scientific understanding. But to then say that they need to be used in planning is a leap. Are they good enough to be better than talking to the public about “we don’t really know, this could happen or that, let’s think through some scenarios?” Are quantitative computer models necessarily better than explaining to the public what scientists currently think about interactions?

If interactions are too complex to predict, then they are too complex to predict- and let’s admit it and use adaptive management. Or use simple, explainable heuristic models. If we are going to use them, then we should wait for 10 years and select the ones with the most predictive value. Weather models were discussed at the Science Forum as a potential approach for the use of models. The problem seems to be that no one in natural resources wants to wait to get the data points. I think we can honor the role of models in increasing scientific understanding without determining that they are predictive enough to be useful in planning.

Sticking to Science

When we invite scientists to speak, we have to be careful about their knowledge claims. Telling stories about their experiences with collaboration isn’t scientific knowledge, it is practitioner experience. In another example, the Precautionary Principle is a human value about how to make decisions under uncertainty. Decision science is, need I say, a separate discipline from biology and ecology. When scientists or scientific organizations advocate for a position like that, in my view, they should separate their science claims from their personal values. Roger Pielke in his book “The Honest Broker” calls these “stealth advocates.” It takes just a minute to add “this isn’t a scientific point of view, it is a value judgment” when you make such a statement , but the power of trust in science and scientists is, indeed, priceless. Ask the climate scientists.

Synchronistically, Roger Pielkei recirculated a quote today in his blog
from the book Breakthrough by Norhaus and Shellenberger which may be as relevant to the planning rule as to climate policy.

The questions before us are centrally about how we will survive, who will survive, and how we will live. These are questions that climatologists and other scientists can inform but not decide. For their important work, scientists deserve our gratitude, not special political authority. What’s needed today is a politics that seeks authority not from Nature or Science but from a compelling vision of the future that is appropriate for the world we live in and the crises we face.

All’s Well on the Planning Front — Or is it?

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The year was 1995 (or thereabouts). I attended a Forest Service sponsored meeting on Strategic Planning at Grey Towers. I carried my brand new copy of Henry Mintzberg’s Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning to the meeting, referring to Mintzberg’s death-knell for planning whenever I could. (Here is a six-page summary pdf) A few souls agreed that Strategic Planning as envisioned by the NFMA regulation ought to have died even before Mintzberg penned his classic. But most in attendance were true soldiers from the Forest Service and a few other government agencies — looking only to do better at their assigned/accepted tasks.

Now it is 2010 and the Forest Service is once-again playing the Frame Game to make sure that the status quo planning frame is not upset too much. Or so it seems to me. As always, I hope I’m wrong. The game is to rewrite the regulatory “rule” for NFMA. If he Forest Service believes it to be a “planning rule” my guess it that the game is lost before it begins. To set a stage the Forest Service is hosting a bunch of so-called collaboration meetings. First out the chute, a Science Forum — a two-day gathering of “scientists” early this week. The outcome of the meeting will likely prove up my 1995 observation-warning that the Forest Service hadn’t (and hasn’t yet) learned its science lesson:

It is folly to assume that, “Science will find the answer,” as if science alone were the key to resolving social problems. Such thinking hasn’t been helpful to medical practitioners, engineers, even scientists when challenged to help explain the cultural mess we’ve gotten ourselves into relative to sustainability.

A framing question lingers: Why is the Forest Service once-again leading with science if the intent is to reframe policy and/or management?

On the heels of the Science Forum, the Forest Service will host three two-day sessions in Washington DC, and a series of one-day sessions in the hinterlands. Not enough time for thoughtful deliberation of what social mess (or wicked problem nest) the Forest Service is in, neither how it got there, neither how it might begin to move forward.

A framing question lingers: Why is the Forest Service once-again hosting a series of meetings to begin reframing the “rule”? Isn’t there any other way? Or is tradition rearing its head once again? Some of us have advocated for Blogs (internet discussion forums) to begin discussing serious policy matters and Wikis to actually write alternative versions of policy. (See, e.g. here.) But all, so far, is to no avail. We’ll see what will happen this time relatively soon. For now, though, let’s step back again in time.

The year was 2002. I began to preach the gospel of Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems (Buzz Holling’s intro to the Panarchy idea), following on the heels of Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions, The Politics of Ecosystem Management, Managing the Unexpected and a few other key books. (See: Collaboration Readings for Reflective Practitioners). I continued to do so until my retirement in 2007. Nobody, other than a few who blog here, seemed to care. Nobody seemed anxious to seek a different path. At least no one in power circles seemed to care.

Inevitably each new idea that emerged was transformed into “Planning”: assess, plan, act, evaluate, plan, …. Planning swallowed up adaptive management without a hiccup. Planning swallowed up Environmental Management Systems, or almost , again without a hiccup. (my 2005-2007 EMS blog) But it was pretense. Pretend adaptive management. Pretend collaboration. Nothing remotely real about it. Still, it suited the Forest Service bureaucracy well. It could be force-fit into the rigid straitjacket of the Manual/Handbook system. Nothing would change the planning juggernaut that was launched way back in 1979.

All could be pretended to be well. If only the damn enviros would just quit suing. After all the Forest Service was/is no longer rapaciously clearcutting. Never mind the mining/drilling interests, the grazers, the commercial recreation interests, etc. Never mind the suited men behind the curtains. Why can’t the enviros just settle in, kick back and enjoy (by 2009) the stimulus money that is being thrown thither and yon, some of it for so-called ecological restoration. Note: the reason the “rule” is once-again ‘in play’ is because some damn enviros sued and got the last one thrown out. (Personal admission: I am one of those ‘damn enviros’, and was long before retiring from the Forest Service.)

A framing question lingers: Did I fall into the ‘Good Will Hunting’ trap? Here is the trap in a nutshell: Badboy Will said to his psychiatrist, in essence: “You people baffle me. You spend all your money on these fancy books, you surround yourselves with ’em — and they’re the wrong fucking books.” (Great movie, btw)

Did I read the wrong books? If so, assuming that any power brokers in the Forest Service actually read, what books ought I to have been studying and preaching from. And if ideas, visions, and paths forward are not to have come from books, what ought I to have been looking for smoking?

Just a few Sunday thoughts to ponder while awaiting the meetings, and the posts that will flow here and in the official FS nonblog.