Build the stakeholder collaboration skills needed to address complex socio-environmental problems that no single person, organization, or discipline can solve alone. Explore how environmental project leaders bring diverse stakeholders, rights holders, disciplines, and organizations together to develop a shared understanding of complex challenges and work toward meaningful solutions.

Examine why complex and “wicked” problems require collaboration across different perspectives and areas of expertise. Apply the concept of requisite variety to identify and engage the range of voices, knowledge, and experiences needed to understand a problem more completely. Explore transdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, and cross-organizational approaches to collaborative problem solving. Develop strategies for organizing stakeholder groups, establishing productive collaboration, and integrating different perspectives when information and responsibilities are distributed across multiple parties. Learn how environmental project leaders can facilitate collaboration even when no formal organization or established structure exists among those affected by the problem. Developed through a collaboration between the University of Maryland Project Management Center for Excellence and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, this course connects environmental science with practical project management approaches for tackling complex socio-environmental challenges.