Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You finish the report, including your assumptions and your concerns about them.
This is the real-life decision made by wetlands expert Angus Chu. He says you should always give yourself a way out to protect your reputation.
This is necessary because it is still a developing field, with many uncertainties. Inadequate funding and short timelines often force wetlands experts to make a lot of assumptions.
"If you had tons of data and you could do lots of analysis, then the decision becomes much easier," Chu says.
The problem, he says, is that most people want to spend the money on the process and not on the decision about which process to choose. As a result, wetlands experts are almost always working with less information than they'd like.
This uncertainty is why you need to explain your assumptions. Otherwise, your reputation will be hurt and you won't get work.
"You have to give yourself a way out. You're not going to put your reputation on the line based on insufficient data," Chu says.
"I call them weasel clauses," he adds, laughing.