Lessons Learned
As with any process aiming to foster collaboration
between a diverse group of stakeholders, the TPEAC
experience was not without its challenges.
Participants' individual perceptions varied, but there
were several commonly identified issues that can be
captured in general lessons about the TPEAC process and
its products. It is hoped that the following
"Lessons Learned", in combination with the
"nuts-and-bolts" advice captured in
Practitioners
Corner, will bring the benefit of hindsight to
future collaborative efforts and to the implementation
of TPEAC's products.
Click on an item below to read more about
the lesson and link to advice and resources:
TPEAC Process
Lessons Learned
Transportation Streamlining Lessons Learned
Pilot Projects Lessons Learned
TPEAC Process Lessons Learned
Clearly understanding and defining the problem(s) are crucial to developing an effective approach.When developing a collaborative
approach, a clear understanding and definition of
the problem is essential if progress is to be made.
TPEAC's enacting legislation specified the
purpose and general intended outcomes of the
Committee, and within the first few meetings
specific performance measure targets were
defined (see Next Steps - Performance Measures).
However, TPEAC brought together a diverse group
of stakeholders to address a complex and
somewhat divisive issue. Accordingly,
members did not come to the table with a unified
perception of the need, goals, and methods for
"streamlining" the permitting process. In
the absence of a shared vision, the Committee
may have benefited from an initial period of
data collection and discussion to define the
problem and outline the objectives.
Additional Information:
Building effective relationships is both the
challenge and the reward of the collaborative
process.
TPEAC required a new, higher
level of interested party cooperation that had not
been occurring. Agencies and key interests
that had operated independently in the past were
required to work together to accomplish the goals of permit
streamlining with greater environmental
benefits. Participants brought diverse agendas and expectations to the
table. The TPEAC experience highlights that it
takes time to orient participants to the
objectives and obligations of fellow committee
members and that this orientation appears to be
crucial to the establishment of credibility and
trust among parties.
Quite a bit
of time was spent at the beginning of the
process sharing perspectives and educating
everyone on transportation project development
and permit processes. Certain participants felt
that the initial emphasis on process was
unproductive, while others felt it was important
to the establishment of trust and credibility.
Additional Information:
Appropriate participation at all phases in the
process is critical to the overall effectiveness of
a group's efforts.
In TPEAC, it became apparent that
missing key participants can negatively impact the overall effectiveness of the
efforts of the committee and its subcommittees.
For some subcommittees, key participants missed
the beginning of the process. As a result they
missed the conversations establishing the shared
understanding and the identification of key
issues and underlying causes.
Further, it appears that policy
level staff were better suited to participate in
the Committee's initial emphasis on orientation
and visioning appears.
Additional Information:
There needs to be a clear, collective understanding
of the roles and responsibilities of participants..
The diverse group of interests
participating in TPEAC brought distinct agendas
to the table, as should be expected.
Particularly for members who did not participate
in the latter stages of the committee, this lack
of an initial shared agenda presented an
obstacle to rapid progress.
Because administrative and budget
responsibilities were assigned to WSDOT,
concerns were raised regarding
WSDOT’s:
- Level of control over the proceedings (i.e.,
agenda setting)
- Motives for participating and their influence
on the outcomes
Further, the relationship between
the full and subcommittees was an area of
disagreement. Some participants felt that the
full committee (legislators in particular)
should have had a more active role in the
subcommittees in order to provide guidance and
better understand the processes, issues, and
developments of each subcommittee.
Others felt the subcommittees and teams were a
place for getting the work done – for permitters
and project managers/engineers to talk through
the issues. The subcommittees were intended to
provide an environment to freely share concerns
and collaboratively problem-solve.
Additional Information:
Effective and appropriate meeting management is
critical to ensuring engagement and productivity
The TPEAC experience highlights some
of the challenges of bringing together a diverse,
statewide group of stakeholders, including:
- Meeting frequency: The high frequency of initial full
committee meetings meant that:
- Subcommittees often did not have significant
progress to report
- Presenters often did not have adequate preparation
time
- Information distribution did not allow enough time
for processing and reflection
Participants already full schedules
made it difficult to accommodate frequent full
committee and subcommittee meetings. Many participants represented their
agency on multiple subcommittees. Overlapping
subcommittee meeting schedules compromised agency
attendance.
-
Facilitation
and management resources: Several participants indicated
that subcommittees would have benefited from
neutral facilitation similar to that used in
full committee proceedings. For some
subcommittees, a facilitator was used early in
the process, helping with group preparation and
providing neutral guidance and advice to the
group. As funding for facilitators ended, the
responsibility was placed on subcommittee
co-chairs. Unless co-chairs had ready access to
TPEAC support staff through WSDOT to assist with
the meeting management functions, it was a
struggle to plan, manage, facilitate, and follow
up the meetings. Subcommittee productivity was
directly affected by the chair/co-chair’s
ability to manage the process.
Additional Information:
Transportation Streamlining Lessons Learned
To get improved
project delivery, examine more than just permit
decisions.
In TPEAC, initial emphasis was placed
on the permitting phase of transportation projects.
Many participants expressed that the TPEAC
experience highlighted the need to examine all
stages of transportation development for
opportunities to reduce conflict and project delay.
For example, the Planning Subcommittee was created to review the
planning phase of transportation project delivery in
order to promote
early identification of environmental issues in preparation for
National and State Environmental Policy Act (NEPA
and SEPA) review.
Additional Information:
Interagency permit teams can be effective in design,
avoiding impact, and compensating impacts of
transportation projects.
The approach developed by TPEAC’s
One-Stop Permitting Subcommittee involved the
use of interagency permit teams comprised of
WSDOT, permitting/resource agencies, affected
tribes, and private or public sector discipline
experts (including engineers). Teams were
developed for two TPEAC Pilot Projects
(SR 104 Hood Canal Bridge and SR 24 Yakima
Bridge) and the results of their efforts were
assessed in a Questionnaire Report.
Within an interagency team, work on
certain items is best relegated to a smaller
work group comprised of the most interested parties who can bring
their solution back to the larger team. For one of
the pilot projects, everyone agreed that the
Interdisciplinary Team (IDT)
was a major drain on staffing resources for most
of the agencies involved. This was
attributed, in part, to meeting topics that
could have been addressed in smaller groups
(“off-line”). There was general agreement that
off-line meetings needed to be used more, better
recorded and reported to IDT Team members.
Also, the schedule and demands placed on this
permitting process made it difficult for
agencies (including WSDOT) to coordinate input
and response from technical staff as quickly as
was expected.
Additional Information:
Early
involvement of transportation and permitting agency
staff is key.
For one of the pilot projects,
participant comments indicated the Interdisciplinary
Team (IDT) should have convened earlier in the
project timeline and the pre-application process
should have been more thorough. Early agency
involvement in the project well before submittal of
applications was considered important and valuable
by the resource agencies. One main reason given was
that early involvement helps support the correct
collection of information and completion of
permitting applications.
Additional Information:
Dedicated
funding is key.
- Transportation
projects delayed or terminated due to insufficient
funds: Two of the three initial pilot
projects faced funding challenges, and one had
to be abandoned as a pilot because of
insufficient funds. Inconsistent and/or
insufficient funding surfaced not only as an
impediment to pilots, but as a major contributor
to project delay and inefficiencies.
-
Insufficient
funding limited participation by some important
players: At the beginning of TPEAC,
participation by some important agencies was
missing due to insufficient funding. The
Washington State Department of Ecology and the
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
received TPEAC funding and were able to fully
participate. Other permitting entities
(including local agencies, tribes, and federal
agencies) had insufficient funding to fully
participate and at the same time perform other
transportation liaison responsibilities.
Intra and
interagency communication can take more
time than expected.
TPEAC required coordination between
state and federal agencies, local and tribal
governments, and private stakeholder groups.
Communication among and between these entities can
take more time than expected but despite challenges,
the value of early and consistent communication
should not be underestimated.
Additional Information:
Process improvement requires champions and
a willingness to think outside the box.
Streamlining in many ways
requires thinking out of the box and a
willingness and openness to questioning and
challenging established methods and business
practices. Looking to change made during
the TPEAC time, a key ingredient concerns the
role of the champion or leader who works to keep
the process moving and to create an atmosphere
or environment that fosters risk-taking.
The experience of the Pilot Project
Interdisciplinary Teams and of TPEAC in general
involved the integration of permitting processes
by agencies with distinct agendas and
longstanding approaches. Concerns were
raised that some agencies were unable or
unwilling to change their ways of doing
business.
Additional Information:
Pilot Project Lessons Learned
Timing parameters and project complexity impact
a project’s value as a model or pilot.
When members of one of the
pilot projects’ Interdisciplinary Team (IDT)
were surveyed, there was general consensus
that using a very complex project on a very
fast time line provides a less than ideal
model or pilot to adequately assess proposed
streamlining tools. Use of partially
developed streamlining tools was abandoned
part way through the process in order to
permit the project and deliver it for
advertisement by the target date.
Additional Information:
As groups and
teams become established, the tendency to form
allegiances diminishes.
For one of the pilot
projects, some participants were concerned
that the IDT forum was a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, efficiencies could be gained by
discussing the project and its impacts in a
multi-agency forum. On the other,
agencies with similar mandates could also tend
to appear allied on an issue initially
raised by only one agency.
Key players must be present at critical times.
Key players were identified as
missing during parts of the IPT process. For
example one small county reported that they did
not participate due to a lack of staff resources, distances to the meetings in
Olympia, and a general perspective that the
other resource agencies would adequately address
the environmental impacts associated with this
project.
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