Performing Cognitive Maps in ill-defined decisional problems for a State Highway location

We propose an operational procedure for the construction of a shared consensus between different actors and stakeholders in the ill-defined decisional process concerning the location of the new State Highway 195, also known as “Sulcitana”, in South-West of Cagliari Province (Sardinia). In practice, we want to demonstrate how using Cognitive Maps (Eden, 1988) in an interactive way contributes to the realisation of an ex-ante collective learning process. It structures the decisional problem by highlighting fundamental points of view shared by all actors and stakeholders involved. These points of view constitute, on the whole, a coherent family of criteria (exaustive, not redundant, cohesive, shared and legitimated) and become the contents of the “Feasibility Study” that the Sardinian Regional Government shall give to the projectual team to design and to evaluate the possible scenarios with reference to their performance on a coherent family of criteria, and to create operational directions for action.