Collaborative Planning and Designing for Adaptive Management

1. Tools and strategies for developing our work groups and work plans Collaborative Planning and Designing for Adaptive Management

2. Outline • Basics of adaptive management • Building agreements and setting priorities • Processes for effective evaluation • Effective monitoring and adaptive management • Change mechanisms • Closing the feedback loop • An immediate funding opportunity to support our work

3. Basics of adaptive management • Designing a deliberate process is key

4. Building agreements and setting priorities • Collaborative planning • Assess conditions together • Identify alternative management strategies • Prioritize management objectives • Prioritize management recommendations • Joint Fact-finding • For resolving disagreements • Document agreed upon issues and those still in dispute • Define zone of agreement

5. Processes for effective evaluation • MBO • Utilization-focused evaluation • Focused on improvement in planning and management • Asks how, why and by whom will the results be used • After-action Review • Rapidly review management action in terms of desired outcomes and implementation realities • Allows for discussion of unintended events, isolate key lessons, and ID changes • Periodic process and program reviews • Regularly scheduled – annually, biennially • Revisit and reflect on program and policy strategies and goals • Encourage critical reflection

6. Effectiveness monitoring and adaptive management • Integrating monitoring with evaluation processes • Quantitative and/or qualitative • Levels based upon needs, resources and long-term commitment • Whether research-based or observational, monitoring, multi-party evaluation and shared-learning are needed to; • Interpret results • Assess what works • Assess what needs to change and, • ID how it should change

7. Change mechanisms Making sure recommended adaptation get used! • Written records • Meeting notes and evaluation reports • Formal recommendations or requests for action • Semi-bonding agreements • Decision or trigger points in Management Plans and Procedures • Working relationships • Regular, informal relationships • Practitioner networks • Facilitators, coordinators and leaders

8. Closing the feedback loop What makes or breaks collaborative planning, evaluation and adaptation? • Individual willingness to experiment and learn • Organizational commitment to collaboration and adaptive management

9. An immediate funding opportunity The Community Capacity and Land Stewardship Program (CCLS) • Outcome 1: Community-based and collaborative organizations within California are successful in coming to agreement on the design and implementation of watershed and/or landscape scale restoration projects. • Outcome 2: Community-based organizations and collaborative groups have developed plans for facilitating job creation and retention and business development in their region. • Outcome 3: Community-based organizations and collaborative groups are successful in securing additional resources through USDA Rural Development, Natural Resources Conservation Service or other funders to implement projects and programs leading to job creation and business development.

10. Qualifying activities • Community outreach that helps support a collaborative group and enables them to be more effective on the ground; • Workshops and training related to facilitation, contracting, and other topics that will assist groups in building their capacity to meet the program goals; and • Dissemination of best practices and tools to assist community-based nonprofit organizations and collaborative groups in project development, implementation, and monitoring. • Organizational and staff support, including facilitation, technical assistance, networking and peer to peer evaluations leading to shared learning; • Travel related to collaborative group activities; • Development of action plans, project strategic documents ,or other similar documents as a result of or necessary for collaborative processes;