Decision Making / 1 / 1.4

1.4 MAPPING WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE PROBLEM AT HAND

Generally speaking, we are seeking to build understanding about what underlies the behaviour of complex problems and the risks involved. When deciding how best to build risk-management strategies, we need to determine how best to draw on managers, decision makers and stakeholders by determining:

• what domain knowledge, knowledge relevant to their domains of action (Laukkanen, 1998), they have;
• what relevant expertise they possess; and
• how well they appreciate the cause-and-effect dynamics underlying the problem situation.

Cognitive mapping helps us produce representations of how an individual stakeholder thinks about a particular issue or problem situation. It is a valuable technique for anybody wanting to conceptualise a problem situation, particularly where systemic issues may be involved noting that, very often, risky situations are systemic. Evidence to support this claim about the systemic nature of risks is presented in subsequent chapters. In this book, concept mapping is used as the term to differentiate a collective mapping involving the aggregation of the views of several people rather than the view of an individual, which is depicted using cognitive mapping.

Throughout this book mapping is used to reveal the nature of a perceived, or actual problem situation, and to assist in problem conceptualisation. How to build and read cognitive or concept maps is explained below.