Sandor P. Schuman

President
Executive Decision Services LLC

Albany, New York 

(518) 229-8345
sschuman@exedes.com

Photo - Sandor Schuman

Biographical Sketch

Sandy Schuman is a group facilitator, collaborative process advocate, and storyteller. He helps groups create shared meaning, make critical choices, and build collaborative relationships. He has been helping organizations work more effectively to solve complex problems, make critical decisions, and work together more effectively for more than thirty years.

Sandy facilitates problem-solving and decision-making processes for a wide variety of management and policy issues and provides training in group facilitation, decision making, systems thinking, conflict management systems, information management, and organizational storytelling.

Sandy is president of Executive Decision Services LLC and research associate emeritus of the University at Albany, SUNY. He is the Editor of the International Association of Facilitators Handbook Series: The Handbook for Working With Difficult Groups (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2010),Creating a Culture of Collaboration (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2006), and The IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2005), and former editor of Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal and moderator of the Electronic Discussion on Group Facilitation. He is qualified on the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution National Roster of Environmental Dispute Resolution and Consensus Building Professionals and the US Postal Service Roster of REDRESS® Mediators. His articles have been published in Creating Collaborative Advantage, Fisheries, Government Technology, Information & Management, Interfaces, Journal of Extension, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, New York State in the Year 2000, Organizational Decision Support Systems, and Quality Progress.

Sandy has extensive experience with environmental management and policy issues (such as water, energy, waste, toxic materials, and natural disasters), redesign and integration of social service delivery systems, health policy issues (such as long-term care, managed care, and information resources for policy makers), administrative systems (such as establishing uniform evaluation or assessment methodologies), and information resource management (including information systems planning and management of end-user computing). Organizations face a nearly continuous string of information management, technology and policy issues. Sandy helps them explore these information-related issues and develop, implement, and evaluate strategies appropriate to their circumstances.

Sandy gained extensive experience in local, state and federal government while working with the New York State Energy Office and New York State Sea Grant/ Cooperative Extension. Sandy holds a PhD in organization behavior from the University at Albany, SUNY, where he also earned his MPA, and a BS in natural resources management from Cornell University.

 

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Selected Publications

  • Four what ifs?  Evaluation of alternative technologies for the destruction of chemical weapons.  Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2004, 23: 4, 2-8 (with J. Rohrbaugh).
  • Information Technology for Groups (Editorial).
    Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal, 2003, 5, 1.
  • Believe in Doubt (Editorial). Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal, 2002, Issue 4, p. 1.
  • A Superlative Task (Editorial). Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal, 2001, Issue 3, p. 1.
  • The Role of Facilitation in Collaborative Groups. In C. Huxham, ed., The Search for Collaborative Advantage. Sage, 1996.
  • What to Look for in a Group Facilitator. Quality Progress, 1996, Volume 29, Issue 6, pp. 69-72.
  • Decision Modeling: Tools for Strategic Thinking. Interfaces, 1991, Volume 21, Issue 6, pp. 52-65 (with P. Reagan, G. Richardson, and S. Dorf).
  • Decision Conferencing for Systems Planning. Information and Management, 1991, Volume 21, pp. 147-159 (with J. Rohrbaugh).