Organizational Decision Making for R3: A Process for Leadership

Adopting the National Hunting and Shooting Sports Action Plan (NHSSAP) facilitated a rapid rise in individual R3 efforts and, to some degree, strategies across agencies and organizations. Unfortunately, these organizations (state fish and wildlife agencies [SFWA] in particular), are extremely resource limited. Though groundbreaking at the time, the NHSSAP failed to guide how an organization, section, or department should construct a strategic approach to 1) determine what types of programs, efforts, and tactics it is best leveraged to deliver and 2) how to make critical decisions on the scope and scale of priority R3 efforts based upon existing and/or fluctuating resource levels.  The lack of a structured decision-making process for resource-limited organizations is an increasingly impactful obstacle to developing practical organizational approaches to R3. A process/protocol for directors and R3 practitioners to design this structure (goals, objectives, personnel, and resource allocation) is needed if R3 is to advance beyond a collection of isolated efforts. This project will utilize published literature, assessments of organizational strategic R3 approaches, and proven structured decision-making protocols to create a decision matrix and process guide for organizational leaders to align their available resources best to define and achieve high-level R3 goals.  Completion of this project will provide decision-makers with a decision framework to leverage acquired knowledge from examples of effective and ineffective R3 organizational structures. Project leads will develop a prescription for organizations to assess goals and objectives, resources allocated, collaborations in place, potential resources and partnerships, and assess needs. This iterative process will allow decision-makers to analyze their programs and resources and identify an R3 organizational structure that will facilitate effectiveness and adaptation, resulting in an optimal allocation of existing resources and enhancing and expanding the implementation and evaluation of the NHSSAP. The results will facilitate the development and adaptation of organizational approaches through a guide that allows organizations to effectively and efficiently implement an objective process to select and prioritize the R3 efforts most appropriate and likely to succeed in their organization. With this guide, and by implementing SDM, each agency and organization will be able to identify their unique starting point, resources to commit, and direction(s) to implement R3.