Managing Large-Scale Restorations
by PBS&J Associate Vice President Charles A. Padera

Restoring an ecosystem with the goal of returning natural functions that have been lost over time presents significant scientific and engineering challenges. Add to the mix multiagency jurisdictions and high public visibility, and the task becomes downright hard. A solid program management support effort can help the restoration team keep these technically and socially complex endeavors moving forward.

Create a Management Dashboard

In large-scale restoration efforts, nothing is more vital to keeping projects moving forward than producing the needed products on time and within budget. A program management team can help accomplish this by creating and displaying the necessary information in a fashion that is useful to program leaders. This management “dashboard” looks at the particulars of ongoing projects —the schedules, budgets, and daily activities of the various involved work groups— filters and synthesizes that data, and provides the reports or “gauges” for the decision makers responsible for monitoring a program’s progress within the context of the current political climate and stakeholder opinions.

Having the right technological tools to support this is critical. Large-scale programs have volumes of data pouring into the decision stream every day. Program managers must create the information system architecture for capturing, storing, and sharing data in a cost-effective manner. Restoration programs span many years. Over this period, program and project team members come and go. To reduce the delays associated with staffing turnover, a program management contractor can serve as a project “historian” by retaining and providing valuable institutional and program knowledge to the successor client team members.

Learn to Manage Uncertainty

For large-scale ecosystem restoration projects, uncertainty is not something that can be eliminated, but rather must be anticipated and planned for. Uncertainty can be found both in the sciences of restoration and in our ability to sustain program support (i.e., funding). These projects require a large investment of dollars, and these expenditures must be supported by the science. Yet at the same time, the longer we wait or delay the restoration to perfect our scientific understanding, the higher the costs tend to be.

Traversing the chasm between what we think is needed and what we can pay for, we are also faced with the uncertainties about how a natural system will respond to a given restoration action. It is difficult to predict with much precision the environmental benefits achieved for dollars spent. Ironically, we were far less sensitive to addressing these “uncertainties” when we helped to create the environmental problems we want to correct today.

Recognizing that we do not have all of the answers, yet wanting to proceed with restoration, the federal government has supported the “adaptive management” approach to environmental restoration. In a July 2000 statement regarding the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works acknowledged that it expects plan implementers to “seek continuous improvements of the plan based on new information, improved modeling, new technology, and changed circumstances.” The challenge for those in the business of ecosystem restoration is to embrace uncertainty, be effective in communicating with decision makers the ramifications associated with moving forward in the face of this, and to incorporate continuous learning into the fabric of restoration planning and implementation.
 
Establish a Climate of Collaboration

For the most part, everyone involved in a large-scale restoration effort agrees that the restoration and replication of natural system functions altered by man’s actions should proceed rapidly. Yet this is difficult because of the wide range of expectations and perspectives that each entity brings. For example, the agencies tasked with the work have individual missions that are defined in law, are governed by rules and policies, and are shaped by their individual organizational cultures.

The general public and various interest groups—agricultural, urban, environmental, and recreational—also have their own concerns.

While differing viewpoints ultimately improve restoration planning results, they have the potential to breed misunderstanding and mistrust and to impede progress. Effective communications tools and processes that foster inclusiveness as well as equal and timely access to important information are essential.

Achieve the Right Balance

Large-scale ecosystem restoration efforts include three primary processes: the technical (science and engineering), “fairness” (engaging the stakeholders in collegial and collaborative ways), and accountability (budget and schedule adherence). Effective program management helps balance these three processes by tendering information, facilitation services, and data sharing tools that assist with the collaboration between the parties (fairness), designing and delivering a management “dashboard” to monitor the progress of program implementation (accountability), and providing high-quality technical support (science). This is accomplished through the establishment of a diverse team of professionals from a variety of disciplines, working shoulder to shoulder with the client and sharing the passion of the environmental restoration mission.

PBS&J’s Charles A. “Chuck” Padera is program director for the Everglades Partners Joint Venture, the program management support team serving the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s Everglades Restoration Program. He has 24 years of professional experience in all aspects of water resource planning and management.