When Planning and Engineering Are One Team

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Learning Outcomes

  • Discuss the perception that the planning voice is less valuable than the engineering voice and distinguish the voices of women and other minority groups.
  • Discover techniques and tools that establish common ground, navigate conflicts, and increase cooperation.
  • Demonstrate how stronger relationships improve projects by taking a facilitative approach to problem solving, applying creativity and inclusivity, and finding community-oriented solutions.

More Course Details

Have you ever felt like the planning and engineering departments are at odds with each other? Have you ever felt like you are working under, rather than with, engineering? A strained relationship between planning and engineering departments can impair office relationships, create power dynamics, and create a combative working environment. It can lead to a regulatory, rather than facilitative, approach to problem-solving, inhibit creative and inclusive solutions, and discourage minority voices.

Learn from planners and engineers from diverse backgrounds how to build trusting relationships, understand each other's goals, establish common ground, and develop an environment that facilitates effective community outcomes. Discover ways to overcome stereotypes about planners, engineers, and people of various genders, ethnicities, ages, orientations, and experiences. Study examples of successful relationships and pick up tools for building stronger connections that foster inclusive, community-based solutions.

Speakers address the importance of respecting professional and personal differences, the legitimacy of female and minority voices, and the significance of working together to facilitate rather than regulate communities.