Cumulative Effects Decision Making · •Cynefin Framework can be used to classify knowledge and problems Snowden, D. J., Boone, M. E. ... •Cumulative effects decision making is

Cumulative Effects Decision Making

The Canadian Institute Cumulative Effects Conference

June 20, 2017

The Need for Cumulative Effects Decision Making

The Need for CE Decision Making

• The Triple Bottom Line

Social Bottom Line

Economic Bottom Line

Environmental Bottom Line

Social Bottom Line



The Perceived Ideal How it Works

Elkington, J, (1997), Cannibals With Forks

This area includes:• Environmental Liabilities

(remediation and reclamation) • Land management trade-offs

(development versus environment)• Species at Risk issues: Caribou, Sage

GrouseElkington, J, (1997), Cannibals With Forks

This area includes:• Environmental refuges

• Fort Mac Fires• Environmental literacy

• Arts vs science • Environmental justice• Intergenerational equity• Landscape carrying capacity

This area includes:• Social impacts of

investment• Corporate Social

Responsibility• Business ethics• Stakeholder and

Indigenous rights• Stakeholder captialism

Social Bottom Line




• How much change is acceptable?• This is a value based decision

Pristine 1% Change

5% Change

10% Change

15% Change

30% Change

40% Change

60% Change

70% Change

Antoniuk, T., (2015) The A, B, Cs of Cumulative Effects Assessment


Dealing with Cumulative Effects Decision Problems

Types of Problems

• Cynefin Framework can be used to classify knowledge and problems

Snowden, D. J., Boone, M. E. (2007) A Leaders Framework for Decision Making (HBR)

Types of Problems

• Simple Problems Domain of simple solutions (utilizes best practices)

• Complicated Problems Domain of experts (utilizes various types of decision models)

• Complex Problems Domain of emergence (utilizes systems methods and systems thinking)

• Chaotic Problems Domain of rapid response (utilizes heroic leadership)

Snowden, D. J., Boone, M. E. (2007) A Leaders Framework for Decision Making (HBR)

Models for Dealing with Simple and Complicated Problems

50 Models for Decision Making• For improving yourself: the Eisenhower matrix, SWOT

analysis, consequences model• For understand yourself: the flow model, cognitive

dissonance, personal performance model• For understanding others: Maslow pyramids, small world

model, Pareto principle• For improving others: Team model, role-playing model,

results optimization model

Developed for use where there are multiple complicated steps• Useful for technical areas where avoiding daily mistakes is

often unavoidable• Helpful for memory recall and ensuring the proper process• Works well with multiple people in multiple teams with

specialized expertise• Helps to prevent communication failures

Current land condition

Single Activity

Mitigation ILM

Denial

Future land condition

Near Threshold?

NoYes

Impact on future state?

Near Threshold?

Yes

No

Adapted from Dube, M., Banister, K., (2015) Hearing Commissioners Workshop on Cumulative Effects

Difference between Complicated and Complex Problems

Current water condition

Activity

Mitigation ILM

Denial

Future water condition

Near Threshold?

NoYes


Near Threshold?

Yes

No

Current air condition

Activity

Mitigation ILM

Denial

Future air condition

Near Threshold?

NoYes


Near Threshold?

Yes

No

Complex Problems

• Cumulative effects decisions are decisions about complex problems

• Complex problems are often difficult to resolve because:• Of incomplete or contradictory knowledge • Of the number of people and opinions involved • They have a lot of interdependencies• They may be non-linear• They have a capacity to adapt as conditions change, and• They may encompass both simple and complicated

problems but are not reducible to either type of problem

Making Decisions

Making Decisions

• What are good decisions?• “A good decisions is one that is:

• logically consistent with our state of information and

• incorporates possible alternatives with their associated probabilities and potential outcomes

• in accordance with our risk attitude.”

• Good decisions require efficiency and effectiveness and implies a need for decision making processes

Skinner, D.C, (2009), Introduction to Decision Analysis, Third Edition

Making Decisions

• Efficiency and Effectiveness• Efficiency is about allocating resources• Effectiveness is about understanding what is to be

accomplished• Effectiveness is built into the concept of efficiency

• We can’t be efficient until we understand what we want to be effective in

• The debate about effectiveness is always subject to argument because it is about Values

Stein, J. G. (2001), The Cult of Efficiency

Making Decisions

• Values• Everyone perceives the world based on assumptions

and our brains constructs meaning based on past experiences1

• We frame the our view of issues through:• Schemas – the cognitive frameworks, templates and rules we apply

to the world to make sense of it, and

• Heuristics – the simple rules of thumb that suggest a solution to a problem2

• Both internal and external factors can exert influence on our judgement

• Small and seemingly insignificant details such as colour and default options can change our frames of reference3

1. Lotto, B., (2017), Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently2. Nisbett, R.E., (2015) Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking3. Thaller, R. H., Sunstein, C. R., (2009), Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness

Making Decisions

• Values• Individual experience and cultural

backgrounds influence our values and therefore the choices we make• Some cultures look at choice as “freedom

from…” while others look at choice as “freedom to…”

• Therefore stakeholders can have significantly different values

• Our perception of choice can affect our well-being and influence everything from our health to our satisfaction with life

Iyengar, S, (2010), The Art of Choosing

Cumulative Effects Decisions


• Most decision making processes deal with simple or complicated decisions

• As a result, the default tools are usually for simple and complicated decisions• Consequences model• SWOT Analysis• Maslow pyramids• Checklists• Intuition and Guessing


• Cumulative effects decision making is about:• Understanding the complexity of the

interactions between that various social, economic and environmental components

• In order to make value judgements about the effects of the activity

• While looking at how the activity fits with all other activities


Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA)• Is a Process or a Set of facilitated Core Steps

that are flexible, scalable and iterative that are informed by the behavioural sciences

• It uses a set of structuring tools from the decision sciences:• Objectives hierarchies• Influence diagrams• Decision trees• Consequence tables• Structured expert judgments• Multi-attribute trade-off analysis

• Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis• It is a way for decision makers to organize and

synthesize information of a complex and conflicting nature1

• It is a collection of formal approaches to take account of multiple criteria to explore decisions that matter1

• It explicitly evaluates multiple conflicting criteria for decision making

• It has been used worldwide in a wide range of natural resource management situations2

1. Belton, V., Stewart, T. J., (2002) Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis: An Integrated Approach2. Mendoza, G.A., Martins, H, (2006), Multi-criteria decision analysis in natural resource management: A critical review of methods and new

modelling paradigms


• MCDA seeks to integrate objective measures with value judgements while making explicit and managing subjectivity1

• It is intended to1,2: • Provide structure to a problem• Take account of multiple, conflicting criteria• force hard thinking about the problem area• Provide a focus and language for discussion • Help decision maker learn about the problem, their own values and

judgements• Provide an organized synthesis of appropriate information • Find where basic differences exist in values and uncertainties• Facilitate compromise, and • Increase the level of debate to promote good decision making

1. Belton, V., Stewart, T. J., (2002) Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis: An Integrated Approach2. Keeney, R, (1982) Decision Analysis: An Overview



• Three broad types of MCDA methods• Value measurement models

• Scoring of decision options to aggregate into high level preferences

• Goal or aspiration models• Discovering options that are closest to achieving

the desired goals

• Outranking models• Alternative courses of action are compared

pairwise to select one alternative over others

Mendoza, G.A., Martins, H, (2006), Multi-criteria decision analysis in natural resource management: A critical review of methods and new modelling paradigms


• While there are many ways to do MCDA, they reduce down to a series of similar steps

• What is the decision context?

• What are the objectives and evaluation criteria?

• What are the criteria for decision?

• What might be the consequences of the decision?

• What are the trade-offs that are needed?

• How do you implement the decision?

Decision Making Example

Cumulative Effects Decision Making Example

Based on: Structured Decision Making: A Practical Guide to Environmental Management Choices

The process described can be found at: http://www.structureddecisionmaking.org/Graphic from: http://bcs.wiley.com/he-bcs/Books?action=resource&bcsId=6991&itemId=1444333410&resourceId=26609


1. Decision Context: • It may be something like the development of a

hydrocarbon resource in an area where there are: • Multiple stakeholders including: Aboriginal / First

Nations, Landowners, Industrial Operators and sometimes other interested parties

• Wildlife areas • Municipalities, and • People in the communities who want both jobs and

outdoor recreational opportunities

• The problem is they may all want to have access to the same lands for incompatible activities


2. Objectives and Evaluation Criteria• Determine the important objectives for making the

decision about the land and its use• These are the things that matter and form the

framework for evaluating alternatives and making trade-offs

• They should be transparent to all stakeholders• You should expect that the objectives identified will

be contradictory

• Determine the criteria are you going to use as performance measures?• Regional, Sub-regional, Local


• What are your objectives?• Social; Environmental; Economic; Aboriginal

/ First Nations and Stakeholder Objectives


• Various tools are used to develop the criteria• Influence diagrams• Ends-means diagrams• Decision trees• Consequence tables• Objective hierarchies• Strategy tables• Probability trees


Influence diagrams are conceptual models used to determine cause-

effect relationships


A Means-Ends diagram are used to develop the linkages between policy and

management options


Decision trees are used to illustrate a sequence of decisions and

consequences

https://www.sampletemplates.com/business-templates/decision-tree-template.html


GoA. Cumulative Effects Land Management Project (2011 - unreleased)Slide prepared by Compass Resource Management

From the tools a table of objectives can be developed


3. Developing Alternatives• MCDM focuses on identifying, comparing and

iteratively refining alternatives

• For each objective there is a statement that show to the preferred direction of the criteria

• Alternatives are complete solutions that reflect substantially different approaches to the problem or different priorities across objectives

• Alternatives should present decision makers with real options and choices

Graphic from: http://bcs.wiley.com/he-bcs/Books?action=resource&bcsId=6991&itemId=1444333410&resourceId=26609




The table of objectives and evaluation criteria form the basis of consequence tables


4. Estimating Consequences

• Using the consequence table, this involves:• Comprehending the information for comparing

the alternatives• Clarifying the relative performance of each

alternative and their advantages / disadvantages based on the objectives and performance measures

• Understanding of how to interpret the level of uncertainty in assessment data• The consequence table may contain both

quantitative and subjective information


• Once you understand your objectives and criteria, trade-off making tools are required• Decision elements – items in decision making

• What information do you have?• What are your alternatives? • What weight do you ascribe to each attribute?• What are you trying to achieve based on values and

preferences?

• Decision rules – how will you make the decision?• Unanimous agreement?• agreement along a scale? • majority vote?• person in-charge decides (with or without discussion)?• flip a coin?

Kaner, S. et. al. (2007) Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decision Making


Consequence tables make information explicit evaluating the consequences of each alternative

Graphic from: http://bcs.wiley.com/he-bcs/Books?action=resource&bcsId=6991&itemId=1444333410&resourceId=26609


Probability trees can be incorporated to correct for uncertainty in the

analysis and help to understand the likelihood of potential consequence.


5. Making Trade-offs

• Decision Makers must:• Ensure understanding of objectives, measures,

alternatives and consequences rank and score alternatives both with and without weighting

• Review the individual results and looks for inconsistencies

• Aggregate results and discusses areas of agreement and difference

• Provide a final ranking based on discussion• Clarify areas of agreement and disagreement and

provide reasons

Gregory, R. et al. (2012) Structured Decision Making: A Practical Guide to Environmental Management Choices


• Even Swaps• Start with the consequences table

• Step 1: Eliminate Alternatives• Look for eliminate one or more of the

alternatives, start with a simple rule• If A is better then B on some objective but no worse

than B on all other objective, you can eliminate B• Option A dominates option B because option B has

disadvantages without any advantages

• Eliminate alternatives where small advantages in one criteria don’t outweigh other more important criteria

Hammond, J., Keeney, R., Raiffa, H. (1998) Even Swaps: A Method for Making Trade-offs


• Step 2: Rank Objectives• Working objective-by-objective, rank the alternatives

with a simple ranking (1-10) that best fulfills that objective• Quantitative objectives are easier to rank then qualitative

objectives• Alternatives with one advantage are candidates for

elimination

• Step 3: Start Making Even Swaps• If every alternative for an objective is rated equal, then

ignore that objective in making your decision• If they are equivalent, they are irrelevant

• This means only critical decision factors are relevant



• Step 4: Evaluate the Remaining Alternatives• If the remaining objectives are similar, decide if

the objective remains relevant to the decision, if it doesn’t drop it• This changes the way the remaining alternatives

match-up

• Step 5: Reevaluate the remaining alternatives based on the remaining objectives• There is no easy way to decide how much of one

objective to trade for another objective – it requires subjective judgement



• For making the swaps• Make the easiest swaps first• Concentrate on the degree of variation between the

two alternatives and not the overall importance of the objective

• Remember the value of an change depends on what you start with • i.e. adding or subtracting an incremental amount to a large

number (such as a land mass) may be inconsequential

• Ensure your swaps are logically consistent• i.e. you are comparing approximately amounts

• Make sure you have the best information you can• It takes time to get used to making these types of

trade-offs, but the process is relatively simple



• None of this is new, so why don’t we use MCDA?

• Concerns with MCDA:• We tend to think of cumulative effects problems as

complicated problems and apply tools for complicated problems

• MCDA can be time consuming as the steps should be iterative and not just done once

• MCDA requires a lot of information • MCDA relies on interdisciplinary understanding and

knowledge of diverse subjects• There are fewer precedence for this type of decision

making• It often requires a trained facilitator• It sounds expensive

Cumulative Effects Decision Making

isn’t Rocket Science

It Just Takes a Different Process

Final Thought

(403) 827-4410

Documents

Cumulative Effects Decision Making · •Cynefin Framework can be used to classify knowledge and problems Snowden, D. J., Boone, M. E. ... •Cumulative effects decision making is