• What is CSS/D?
• Benefits of CSS/D
• Applying CSS/D
• CSS/D Process
• CSS and Design
• Case Studies
• Webinars
• Resources
• Key References
• History

Context Sensitive Solutions Technical Assistance: Idaho Transportation Department

Appendix

Meeting Handouts

Day One Homework Assignment Questions

1. What stood out from the presentations today?
2. What excites you about what you heard today? What concerns you?
3. What lessons learned, challenges or opportunities come to mind?
4. Based on what you heard today what are two key considerations important to guide the development of practical solutions/design checklist?

Day Two Homework Assignment Questions

1. How do you use the practical design guide (PDG)?
2. What is working well and what isn’t?
3. If someone were to develop an action list for updating the PDG, what priority items would you suggest?
4. If someone were to add a checklist to help guide designers through the practical design process and place it in the Appendix of the PDG what should be included on it?
5. If any items were to be added to the project charter related to practical design where should it be placed in the charter and how should the items be worded?

Elaboration of Stakeholder Involvement Discussion

On the third day of the workshop, Lori Porreca, FHWA, was involved in the discussion group that focused on the questions in the stakeholder involvement focus area. She provided the notes below because there was an in-depth conversation that may not have been fully captured in the final questions that were developed. These notes are lightly edited as shown in brackets, for clarity.

Generally, we [the stakeholder involvement group] focused on the project development process and how stakeholder identification and engagement occurs. The ITD folks [representatives] at the table expressed that their process is unclear due to staff turnover and changes, merger of the design and construction sections, and introduction of new systems at ITD that have not been well-integrated. Because of this [uncertainty] our group mostly focused on improvement to the process from one phase to the next. Below is a list of action items derived in response to these concerns:

• [One priority is] clearly defining [the] stakeholder involvement plan (who, what and when) from the evaluation phase charter of a project through to the construction phase charter of a project.
• They [the ITD personnel in the group] would like the evaluation phase charter to have a clearly defined stakeholder involvement schedule. The current stakeholder section in the charter only has space for the ITD contact. They would like to see the schedule, all the names and contacts, and what activities will occur.
• They [the ITD personnel in the group] would like the schedule to be inclusive of each phase through construction. Currently staff only schedules to the end of each phase. They also thought that having a plan and complete schedule up front would allow better decision-making when projects are advanced forward in the program because of redistribution or other new money that may become available in any given year.
• They [the ITD personnel in the group] would like to define the process for developing the stakeholder involvement plan so that there is consistency between projects and among different staff. Their preferred vision for this [defining the process] is for the project manager to complete the POP [tool] and then to work with the District PR person [representative] or the District Planner to identify stakeholders and develop the schedule. They also suggested that the PR person [representative] or Planner [should] have the responsibility for maintaining an accurate list of stakeholders in each district.
• They [the ITD personnel in the group] would like the POP to link directly to the Charter so that staff doesn’t have to search for information or systems. In general, they would like to have more of their existing systems and manuals link to the charter and have the charter have more clearly defined prompts or steps so that staff are less likely to miss important information or steps. They suggested incorporating pull-down menus into the charter.
• In general, they [the ITD personnel in the group] expressed interest in emulating or modeling their process on Ada County Highway District’s (ACHD) current process. Ryan Cutler, who works for ACHD, was at our table. He described the ACHD public involvement process as starting with a comprehensive list of all possible PI activities and stakeholders and then paring that down based on individual projects. He also said that project managers develop a plan and schedule for the entire project from conception to construction.