February 21, 2008

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21^st Century Decision Tools

The 21^st Century has many national and international projects: education, health care, climate change, transportation, waste …  The many projects have many project managers.  In some cases governments are the primary managers.  In other cases, businesses are the primary managers.  In most every case, humans are not employing the full power of the Internet to manage large projects.

In the 20^th Century, humans employed commissions, committees, and subject matter experts to produce reports, studies, research papers …  For example, in 2005, when addressing how to raise and spend hundreds of billions of US dollars for transportation, the US Congress created two commissions: the National Highway Funding Commission and the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission (NSTP&RSC).  The latter was created with a $2.8 million budget and released its final report in February 2008.

The NSTP&RSC report is an amazing accomplishment with several innovative recommendations, and even a bold suggestion for increased fuel taxes. However, it has some of the typical disadvantages of this 20^th Century Decision Tool, which include:

·         Technology moves so quickly, the reports are often outdated before they are completed.

·         The reports are updated only during a crisis or after a catastrophe or a scandal.

·         The “hot project” demand for quick action often generates “band aide” recommendations with the structural recommendations falling from collective memory until the next catastrophe.

·         The subject matter experts, and stakeholders, can be unaware of, or even biased against, the technologies and concerns of others.  (For example, if the subject is widget production, the widget experts may not notice or mention new technology, which eliminates the need for widgets.)

·         The human need to “complete” a report combines with the human tendency to “focus” the subject matter, resulting in a failure to promote project-improving synergies.  (The air quality experts recommend funding air-cleaning widgets, even though the water-cleaning widgets provide better net air and water cleaning.  Or the West widget manufacturers chose not to build the widget whose production causes a reduction of pollution in the East.) 

·         Advocacy groups tend to inhibit a complete examination of project actions with early and frequent negative publicity.  (A sequestering widget is dropped from discussion before innovation and research on the objections can transform it into a world saver.)

·         Well-funded advocacy groups often generate ill-advised project actions in absence of an overall decision tool.  (International Food Widgets uses public funds converting surplus food widgets to energy widgets, which is shortly found to be a low-performing investment from a global perspective.)

In the 21^st Century, humans are starting to use the Internet for project management.  More people can input to reports (overwhelmingly so).  Everyone can publish.  Much of human knowledge is available to everyone (also, overwhelmingly so, and often with dubious accuracy).  Surely, we can harness the “two-edged sword” of Internet features to produce a 21^st Century Decision Tool.  Our 21^st Century Decision Tool should have the following features:

·         The decision tool could be “permanently” operating for the persistent projects.  Once set up, it continues as a “complete” and current report for decades.  The data base cells would be filled in for new technologies or new policies within a month or so of said technology or policy suggestion.

·         The decision tool would be funded and maintained with a combination of the processes used on WikipediA, the National Council for Science and the Environment’s earthportal.org, and the US Congress’ NSTP&RSC.

·         The decision tool would recognize and “score” synergies with other projects.

·         The decision tool represents all human knowledge.

·         The decision tool encourages brainstorming and associated suggestion evolution.

·         The decision tool reflects all viewpoints accurately and with “truth.”

·         The decision tool maximizes individual interaction.  That is, individuals can change variables to see how the change influences an optimum “slate” of recommendations.

·         The decision tool reduces (or at least quantifies) both ecological and investment uncertainties.

·         The decision tool evolves with technology and human understanding.  For example, the tool should include market forecasting, like that employed by the Iowa Electronic Markets.

Climate Change would be a good first project for a 21^st Century Decision Tool.  Climate Change is a global and international project, as is the Internet.  The project will persist for millennia.  The project solutions need to appeal to virtually everyone.  We fail, if even 5% of humans determine to burn all the available fossil carbon they can find.  New technologies and evolved old technologies appear daily.  Any first suggested solution is likely to have negatives, but it may combine well with other suggestions or be transformed to reduce the negatives and increase the positives as participants work on the decision tool.

A simple 20th Century matrix decision tool is provided below as a very crude and incomplete illustration of the concept.  In the 21st Century Tool, a great many subject matter experts, stakeholders, innovators, and businesses could collaborate.  For example; subject matter experts would provide a consensus on the sustainable capacity (or a bell curve of estimates).  They might also provide a “total harmless” capacity in another column, for technologies that are not fully sustainable.

Individuals could manipulate their selected effort to arrive at the sum of emissions reduction and removal they feel is necessary (without disturbing the ‘base’ tool).  Electronic markets may be employed to present the individual with the odds their selections will be sufficient to prevent more than 30 feet (10 meters) of sea level rise over 100 years.

The costs and other issues with each technology are also displayed, again with the hope that subject matter experts (or electronic markets?) can agree on appropriate relative scores (or bell curves therefore).  The tool will suggest which technologies are currently best by their overall score.  Because all technologies are evolving, one would expect a technology’s ranking to change frequently over the next few hundred years.