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March 2008
Findings published from collaborative leadership initiative
Key conclusions from the report:
- Mediation is a very effective tool in breaking deadlocks that are delaying project-level transportation decisions, particularly if the mediation can clarify areas of law or regulation that are inflexible and areas for option generation and creative problem solving.
- Because of this opportunity to break deadlocks, mediation can accelerate the pace of project decision making.
- Those with a stake in the outcome benefit from training that prepares them to participate effectively in mediation and from the expectation that they will shift from creating deadlocks to breaking deadlocks.
Findings are available from a pilot initiative designed to provide training and facilitation skills for local agencies.
The initiative—“Developing a Collaborative Leadership Approach to Managing Conflict and Consensus Building During Local Agency Transportation Project Development”— was sponsored by the National Local Technical Assistance Program Association (NLTAPA) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Mn/DOT State Aid for Local Transportation, in cooperation with the FHWA and CTS, guided the project.
The goal of the initiative was to strengthen local transportation practitioners’ knowledge and skills in collaborative leadership. It involved four main tasks: developing and conducting pilot training; applying the skills in an actual project; creating a recommended framework for national application; and assessing pilot effectiveness and sharing lessons learned.
The project team was led by Tom Sorel, FHWA Minnesota division administrator; Julie Skallman, Mn/DOT State Aid director; and Cheri Marti, former CTS associate director of education and outreach. Their report concludes that with some modification, a training-mediation program has strong potential to be useful for other transportation projects.
Jim Grothaus, director of Minnesota LTAP, presented highlights from the effort at the annual conference of the Minnesota County Engineers Association in January.
A one-page summary is online at www.mnltap.umn.edu/Publications. For more information, please contact Jan Lucke of CTS, 612-625-8401, jlucke@umn.edu.