Decision making

The decision-making process starts well before the outdoor learning experience. 

Much of the planning process revolves around choosing locations, staff and activities. However, the crucial point for many teachers/leaders is the decision 'to go' or 'not to go' just before the outdoor experience. At this stage the following issues should be addressed:

• Have all the main aspects of planning been accomplished?
• Is the leadership of the group appropriately skilled and experienced?
• Have important potential risks been identified and assessed? 
• Are the conditions expected on the day likely to present any unexpected problems? 
• Are there any factors within the group or staff team that might lead to a reconsideration of plans? 
• Do I need to take any specialist advice?

Outdoor learning requires self-reliance from both learners and leaders. This is usually a very positive aspect of the experience but unexpected events will sometimes put leaders under great pressure. Well prepared leaders who have gone through an effective planning process will take such changes in their stride but sometimes the demands on them will be greater. 

This is particularly true of outdoor learning experiences where remoteness and adverse weather conditions may have an effect. Deciding when and how to react to a situation that may be threatening the group is a key role of the leader. Calm reflection is necessary even when there seem to be a hundred things to do.

Leader experience

Experience is of enormous importance to a leader's quality of judgement. There are several ways to develop it:

• self-review
• peer review (non-judgemental)
• learning from the experiences of others
• exploring personal limits (when not operating professionally)
• training.

Decision making is a mixture of intuition, technical knowledge, analysis, observation, forecasting and learning from similar situations. So the process we follow in making decisions in outdoor learning situations is:

• See the big picture.
• Compare with past experience.
• Identify threats. 
• Predict the possible future course of events.
• Act accordingly.

Factors that commonly have an adverse effect on judgement include:

• peer pressure
• fatigue
• time pressure
• anxiety
• getting back to base at all costs
• allowing a desire to please other people to eclipse other factors
• failure to recognise a new situation 
• confused priorities.

Most leaders who find themselves tested by circumstances realise they are able to tap undiscovered resources within themselves.