|  Who They Are
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| Be sure to include decisionmakers--communicate
early and often! |
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Decisionmakers are those participants
who decide on a course of action.
In a sense, every participant is also a decisionmaker. The types
of decisions made by different participants are illustrated
in the next section on this page.
Who the final decisionmaker is depends on the question and
the participants. Within Reclamation,
this may be the Area Office Managers, Regional Directors, the
Commissioner, the Secretary of the Interior, Congress, or even
a judge or the President. External decisionmakers may be a lead
agency, state legislatures, governors, people who own the resources,
etc.
Who decides on a course of action may be based on:
- Position
- Who is officially responsible?
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- Reputation
- Who has been chosen by the participants to make the decision?
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- Action
- Who has done the work in the past?
Roles will vary with each process.
Identifying all the decisionmakers early and agreeing on who
will make what decision will help keep your process on track.
Document who decisionmakers are in the action
plan and take stock and
do reality checks regularly. Keep
track of decisionmakers. If they change,
ensure that new decisionmakers know what the process is and
what is expected of them. Decisionmakers are your real clients.
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| What They Decide
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| Leadership is action, not position.
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Each participant decides how much to be involved,
what priority it has in relation to other activities, what to
expect, andwhat resources (money, time, thought, etc.) to provide.
Groups and partners as a whole
decide on ground rules and agree
on who will do what and how. This is often couched as a Memorandum
of Understanding, Statement of Work, contract agreement, partnership
agreement, etc.
Organizations set up final decisionmakers who sign off on
the final decision. This may be determined by our government
structure, or it may be up to the individual agencies' hierarchy.
Each process has a different set of decisionmakers. Adapting
the influence diagram of
decisionmakers below to your project early in the process will
help everyone understand their roles and responsibilities. List
all decisions that need to be made and who will make them. This
may help prevent decision delays--the decisionmaker will know
that you are waiting and what the decision is about.
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Reclamation Decisionmakers
Participants
Core Team