Dr. Jonathan Cummings
71 Green St
Vergennes, VT 05491 USA
email: jonathan.cummings@gmail.com
mobile: 802.999.8684
My professional goal is to help maintain the integrity of natural systems and achieve sustainable human communities. I aim to accomplish this by disseminating my knowledge and skills to help people practice environmentally responsibility and well-reasoned decision making.
As a result, you can often find me thinking about my frustration with certain aspects of our civilization, how bad the news can be, and how I want to make things better.
Everyday each of us makes about 3,000 decisions, most virtually inconsequential, some of moderate importance, but from time to time they impact the entire course of our own or others’ lives.
Did you know there is a science to making better decisions?
Well there is, and the process for making better decisions is called Structured Decision Making (SDM). If you are at all familiar with this approach, you may think of it as a complex process, but the beauty of SDM is that it is an adaptable, common sense method that can be tailored to a problem of any size or complexity.
While SDM is often used to address complex or challenging problems, at its core, it consists of five components: 1) identify the problem or decision opportunity, 2) determine your values and clarify objectives, 3) propose actions and create alternatives, 4) predict their consequences, and 5) evaluate the trade-offs to decide what's the best.
It can be quite simple, for example: 1) Should I prepare for rain tomorrow? 2) I want to stay dry and unencumbered, 3) I could take an umbrella, or not, and 4) the weather forecast says 20% chance of rain. 5) I will stay dry with the umbrella, but my umbrella is heavy and awkward so given there is little chance of rain I leave it at home.
That quick process allowed me to identify the important trade-off of being dry vs. being unencumbered, identfy my options and their consequences, consider the trade-off between encumberance and dryness, and select the option (no umbrella) that is most expected to achieve those objectives given the low chance of rain.
I've applied this approach to endangered species management and conservation (e.g., Palila - a really neet Hawaiian forest bird, New England Cotton Tail, Fisher, Atlantic Salmon), program management (e.g., research prioritization, process selection), and personal decisions (e.g., where to live and work, what car to buy). While each step for these decisions required more detail, the steps in the process remain the same.
In addition to leading teams through participatory decision processes, I teach as many interested students as I can how to be an SDM practitioner. I’ve collaborate closely with the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) to teach courses on the SDM process, anaytical tools, and SDM facilitation. I also develop and teach courses locally when possible, including past offerings at the School for Marine Science & Technology, the University of Vermont, and Champlain College.
“After coming into this class with little to no knowledge of how to make an informed decision in a structured way, besides using a pros and cons list, I now feel as though I have some really useful resources at my disposal.” University of Vermont SDM student.
My research supports decision making, transparency, collaboration, and natural resource management. If you are interested in more about my work or anything SDM related, don’t hesitate to contact me. I look forward to hearing from you and helping us decide better together.
Suggestions to learn more about Structured Decision Making
Books
Give Yourself a Nudge: Helping Smart People Make Smarter Personal and Business Decisions - This text is also for a broad audience a presents the lessons we all can take from Keeney's career in decision analysis. (Link)
Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions - This is an excellent introductory text for a broad audience that covers the main steps of the structured decision making approach and the rational for its use. (Link)
Structured Decision Making: A Practical Guide to Environmental Management Choices - This is the go to text on the subject for understanding the qualitative aspects of structured decision making. (Link)
Decision Making in Natural Resource Management: A Structured, Adaptive Approach - This is one of two go to texts on the subject for understanding the quantitative aspects of structured decision making. (Link)
Making Hard Decisions with DecisionTools - This is one of two go to texts on the subject for understanding the quantitative aspects of structured decision making. (Link)
Values Focused Thinking - In this book, Ralph Keeney shows how recognizing and articulating fundamental values can lead to the identification of decision opportunities and the creation of better alternatives. (Link)
Structured Decision Making: Case Studies in Natural Resouce Management - Provide additional overview on the process of structure decision making, as well as a series of case studies that highlight the major types of decision we face. (Link)
Websites
SDM fact sheet - USFWS (https://www.fws.gov/science/doc/structured_decision_making_factsheet.pdf)
SDM summary - USGS, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. (Link)
SDM description - Compass Resource Management (http://www.structureddecisionmaking.org/)