Publications

RAND has contributed more to thinking about how to deal with the longer-range future than any other organization. The methodological work at RAND started in the late 1950s and 1960s with the developments of the Delphi method and scenario analysis. This work continued sporadically through the 1970s and 1980s—and since the 1990s—computational technology has enabled new futures methodologies such as Robust Decision Making and Scenario Discovery.

RAND is again leading the way in putting these methods to use in dealing with the challenges of the future. Below is a list of publications that exemplifies RAND's work on Robust Decision Making methodology and applications.

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  Developing a Robust Water Strategy for Monterrey, Mexico: Diversification and Adaptation for Coping with Climate, Economic, and Technological Uncertainties August 9, 2019

  Mexico's third-largest metropolitan area, Monterrey, faces future water security challenges as the region grows. Tecnológico de Monterrey and RAND Corporation researchers used RAND's Robust Decision Making (RDM) framework to organize an analysis of long-term trends and vulnerabilities in water management in Monterrey and to help design a long-term water strategy.

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  Preparing for Future Droughts in Lima, Peru: Enhancing Lima's Drought Management Plan to Meet Future Challenges May 14, 2019

  This study evaluates the performance of Lima, Peru's current drought management plan against future droughts and proposes augmentations, and it recommends ways to ensure that the drought management plan performs will in the uncertain future.

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  Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty: From Theory to Practice April 11, 2019

  This open access book focuses on both the theory and practice associated with the tools and approaches for decisionmaking in the face of deep uncertainty.

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  Robust Decision Making (RDM) April 10, 2019

  Decisionmakers often seek predictions about the future to inform policy choices. But a reliance upon analytic methods that require them can prove counter-productive and sometimes dangerous in a fast-changing, complex world.

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  Robust Decision Making (RDM): Application to Water Planning and Climate Policy April 10, 2019

  This chapter presents two case studies that demonstrate how DMDU methods, in particular Robust Decision Making (RDM) (see Chap. 2), can help develop robust long-term strategies.

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  Reflections: DMDU and Public Policy for Uncertain Times April 10, 2019

  This chapter seeks to provide a thematic connection between the theory and application chapters that preceded it and the emerging needs of public policy decisionmaking processes.

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  Do Differing Analyses Change the Decision? Using a Game to Assess Whether Differing Analytic Approaches Improve Decisionmaking April 8, 2019

  The decision analysis community faces obstacles in moving new methods, tools, and paradigms from theory to practice, partly because of the difficulties in demonstrating value proposition. In this report, RAND researchers use a structured comparison game to examine the value proposition of different analytic inputs (scenario-based versus Robust Decision Making) on a sample U.S. Department of Defense decision about force structure.

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  Bezos World or Levelers: Can We Choose Our Scenario? March 28, 2019

  This essay explores how AI might be used to enable fundamentally different future worlds and how one such future might be enabled by AI algorithms with different goals and functions than those most common today.

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