8149

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8149
• Author: Phenicie, C. K. and J. R. Lyons.
• Title: Tactical Planning in Fish and Wildlife Management and Research.
• USFW Year: 1973.
• Copyright Material: NO

administrators assign problems without realizing what is involved. From
plans they can see this. If the solution is beyond economic means, the
problem may be narrowed. If the problem must be solved with less effort or
in a shorter time period, steps to be eliminated can be studied, and the
administrator will be fully aware of the risks involved by the omissions.
Third, step-down plans have served as persuasive graphics in budget hearings
where decision makers can see clearly what is involved. Fourth, there is a
trend toward cooperative efforts within the disciplines and agencies at solv-
ing complicated problems. The graphic step-down plan facilitates delineation
of responsibilities.

We have laid out a logical system for choosing paths of endeavor for
profitable expenditure of our professional energies. Some will say that this
system is their present mental process for resolving a problem, and it may
well be. This is a way of thinking and no more. From our own experience,
and from others we observe, a common error emerges. The primary and imme-
diate lower echelon objectives may be phrased properly, but at some point
the worker invariably sets aside his mental discipline of identifying obsta-
cles and specifying solutions. Instead he reverts to his old pattern of
thinking by inserting those techniques he knows, by including the tools of
problem solving he was taught or has developed. His thinking becomes method
oriented instead of problem oriented, and the plan is not valid. If each
objective is clearly on target and if the conditional sentence is used to
test each echelon of objectives, this trap will be evaded. The plan will
outline needs and not contain simply "anything that comes to mind" (Regier,
1968) .

STATEMENT OF ACTION OBJECTIVES

. . . if you're not sure where you're going, you're
liable to end up someplace else - and not even know it.
(Mager, 1962)

In the same sense that the travel itinerary prearranges progress from a
known location for a timely arrival at a selected destination, the tactical
plan arranges for predictable stepwise progression from the present status of
knowledge of the problem to attainment of the objective. An objective, if
derived correctly, is the principal control point in management operations or
research. An objective is an end point, an accomplishment destination. Its
utility is in communicating this intended destination to the boss, to co-
workers and most important of all, to the worker himself.

In practice, the research and management objective often fits another
definition: A statement of intended pursuit wherein the worker may exercise
imagination and ingenuity without restriction in direction or scope. We have
heard the spirit of this definition vigorously defended by a number of fish
and wildlife workers, a defense we believe is groundless. Proposed management
and research accomplishments can be phrased specifically to support planning
for predictable attainment. More rapid and productive progress will be made
toward meeting needs of the resource when we learn to state where we are going
and when we intend to get there.

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