Appendix A - - Quality - Construction - FHWA

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National Plain Language Peer to Peer Conference

Appendix A

Conference Agenda

June 17	Topic	Presentor	Duration
8:30 am	Welcome	Rick Land	10
8:40 am	Purpose of the conference	Mike Kissel	10
8:50 am	Introductions What do you expect to achieve at this conference?	Jeff Lewis	10
9:00 am	Defining plain language (PL) Language Style	Greg Edwards	30
9:30 am	Defining plain language – State by State	All	60
10:30 am	Break	All	15
10:45 am	Status of Plain Language Conversion – State by State	All	60
11:45 am	Lunch – on your own	All	60
1:00 pm	Contract Specification Discussion What was the reason for starting the PL project? Do you consider specifications part of design or construction? Did you consider Construction Specification Institute format? For materials, how did you split out general from specific requirements? Do you include building work with road work or use separate contracts?	All	150
3:30 pm	Break	All	15
3:45 pm	Continue Specification discussion What is your spec development process? How many specification engineers do you have? What is your relationship between technical experts? Did you pilot your PL conversion	All	60
4:45 pm	Adjourn

June 18	Topic	Presentor	Duration
8:30 am	Bid Book Discussion What are the main concerns regarding bidding? What is your process for bid analysis? Did you pilot your bid book conversion?	All	60
9:30 am	Break	All	15
9:45 am	Advertising Discussion What advertising tactics did you employ? How did PL affect your advertising schedule? How much time is allowed for bidding? Do you use electronic contract documents? Do you use electronic bidding?	All	60
10:45 am	Policy Development How was policy development integrated into specification development? Were you able to convert your existing policy documents or did you have to start over?	All	60
11:45 am	Lunch – on your own	All	60
1:00 pm	Policy Development Continued How did you assure all the PL provisions were covered by your policy development? What policy changes were required? How long did it take to convert your policies and procedures?		60
2:00 pm	Industry and Training How did industry react to your PL conversion? How was industry input obtained? How has industry responded to implementation? Do your contractors work mostly in your state or nationally? What did you do to get industry to support your PL conversion?	All	60
3:00 pm	Break	All	15
3:15 pm	Implementation Steps How do you provide update information? Did you publish your Standards fully revised or by transition? How do you update your standards? How do you track version control for your standards?	All	60
4:15 pm	Adjourn

June 19	Topic	Presentor	Duration
8:30 am	Training How did you train staff? Design, Construction, Specifications How much training did you provide to your staff? What kind of training did you provide to your staff? Did you provide training for local agencies? Did you provide training for consultants? Did you provide training for contractors?	All	60
9:30 am	Break	All	15
9:45 am	Program Delivery Impacts From inception to publication, how long did it take to create your PL construction contract documents? How long did it take to convert the associated manuals? Do you have a schedule for publication of your standards? What was your risk to delivery? Did implementation delay delivery of any projects? Did implementation have an impact on the final quality of the constructed product? Did implementation result in an increase of contract claims or arbitration filings?	All	135
12:00 pm	Lunch – on your own	All	60
1:00 pm	Continuous Quality Improvement What process will you use to update your: Contract documents? Construction manuals? Design Manuals? What lessons will you use for future projects? How do you track lessons learned? How do you communicate lessons learned to staff?	All	60
2:00 pm	General Lessons Learned What worked well? What needed improvement? Did going through the PL project result change any processes? Design? Construction? Specifications?	All	60
3:00 pm	Adjourn

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Updated: 04/04/2011

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