Complex environmental projects are defined by leadership via influence and collaboration across participatory groups that see it in their interest to engage and co-produce sustainable outcomes. This requires a whole new adaptive management approach and perspective on leadership from the traditional models of “great men” to one that is a process of engagement, agile teams, and adaptive leadership. This course begins with establishing the case and need for modern management practices, especially in distributed environments and complex environmental projects. This approach emphasizes empowering team members close to the work with decision making and ownership over doing their part of the project. And it will be essential for the core project team, management actions and all involved and interested parties and especially the stakeholders to incorporate the adaptive management approach throughout co-production. Then, the course will dive into what it takes to facilitate great partnerships. From building a great team, to establishing motivation, framing purpose, and creating psychological safety that ensures voices are heard and risks are managed throughout project execution. Whether your environmental project deals with climate change, ecological systems, biodiversity, land management, international development, natural resource management, water resources or the protection of wetlands, adaptive management and stakeholder engagement are at the center of the project ecosystem. At its core, this type of facilitating and empowering leadership requires trust. As a result, the course dedicates significant lessons to understanding how to build that across one and many “teams of teams” working together, implementing interventions and iterations with a feedback loop to achieve their shared outcomes and engage in adaptive management. Leading complex teams always requires moving concertedly in a single direction together which incorporates incentives. Whether you are leading decision makers, trying to guide management objectives, or influencing management policies, it takes stewardship, and this is a learning process. Establishing a clear management process and strategic execution framework enables better management decisions at all levels. We demonstrate management strategies like objectives and key results (OKRs) and team design strategies, as well as agile execution frameworks, can help coordinate without dictating the direction. These approaches are also adaptive and enable feedback, strengthen partnerships, are iterative, and encourage participatory adaptive management. The course then wraps with an example of these approaches and case studies in action in the addressing the watershed and sustainability in the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake fisheries offer a wonderful ecology to study and understand in terms of water quality, regulatory impacts, and the success of active adaptive management. With real-world examples taken and delivered so you can see what success looks like, this case study highlights the concept of adaptive management, the decision-making process and how to model it for your own complex environmental projects influencing future management, healthy ecosystems and sustainability.
