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Entries Tagged as 'Stakeholders'

The Green/Red Dot Exercise

June 15th, 2010 · 1 Comment

How to Facilitate a Large Group Agreement Quickly
Quick agreement is needed during the visioning exercise that often occurs during the first public meeting of a charrette. Participants are seated in groups of no more than eight people per table. Each table has a facilitator and recorder. During this exercise, each table creates a long [...]

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Categories: Meeting Facilitation · Public Meetings · Public Participation · Stakeholders

The Importance of Confidential Interviews

May 11th, 2010 · No Comments

Avoiding Project Failure Due to Inaccurate Stakeholder Information
When an opposition group moves in after a charrette and undermines project implementation it is usually because the project team either was unaware of their existence or did not fully understand their true position. One powerful method for verifying information is to conduct confidential stakeholder interviews.
Confidential interviews conducted [...]

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Categories: Charrette Preparation · Stakeholders

Get the Word Out!

April 13th, 2010 · 1 Comment

Excerpted from the NCI 2005 Best Practices Report
By Keith Covington, Principal
Third Coast Design Studio
Some of the toughest people to deal with during a planning process are those who did not attend the charrette. In the public sector, we have tried just about every method to notify and encourage people to attend. After all, [...]

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Categories: Charrette Preparation · Public Participation · Stakeholders

Engaging the Public 101

March 16th, 2010 · No Comments

Excerpted from the NCI 2005 Best Practices Report
By Jennifer K. Lindbom, AICP
“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” - Henry Ford
The places and spaces we seek to create as architects, planners, and design professionals exist for the people that inhabit, work in, transit through, or enjoy them. It is [...]

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Categories: Charrette Preparation · Communications/PR · NCI Publications/Resources · Public Participation · Stakeholders

Working with (not against) Bloggers

January 12th, 2010 · 4 Comments

NCI recently had a chat with PR expert Ben Brown about working with social media in public projects and found his following advice and insights valuable.
Ben recommends that if there is a hot political climate surrounding your plan, perhaps you should avoid starting your own project blog. Rather, do some homework to seek out [...]

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Categories: Communications/PR · Stakeholders

Tweet, Flick, Whatever: More Help or More Noise?

November 11th, 2009 · No Comments

The topic of social media’s role in public planning processes is a hot one. NCI continues to research and present on the topic as we did at the annual Congress for the New Urbanism in June where Bill Lennertz of NCI and Ken Snyder of PlaceMatters spoke on “Hi-Tech, Hi-Touch Public Meeting Facilitation Tools for [...]

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Categories: Communications/PR · Public Participation · Stakeholders

Kids at Charrettes

June 18th, 2009 · 3 Comments

The participation of children in charrettes is a hot topic at our trainings these days. At ASU last week we discussed these major benefits.

Kids can add important content. They are, of course, brutally honest and also quite smart about planning issues.
Their presentations can change the whole tenor of the charrette. Kids very often speak [...]

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Categories: Public Participation · Stakeholders

Two ways the NCI Charrette System works for sustainable community design

June 5th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Changing project users mindsets and preconceptions about sustainability is a prerequisite to implementing sustainable design projects in which users take ownership. Charrettes create an immersive, shared-learning environment that promotes a shift in mindsets.
Sustainable projects have a complex set of environmental, economic, and social variables plus a large, diverse set of stakeholders. The NCI Charrette [...]

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Categories: Benefits of Charrettes · Stakeholders · Sustainability

Trade-offs of full-time, invited stakeholders v. intermittent, open participation in charrettes

May 28th, 2009 · 3 Comments

I had an interesting discussion with the students at our D.C. training this month. We were debating the trade-offs of workshops in which a select group of stakeholders participate in virtually the entire event participating in the design sessions elbow to elbow with the professional design team.
We talked about the obvious advantages of having [...]

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Categories: Public Participation · Stakeholders

Charrettes for the New (Depressed) Economy

December 17th, 2008 · No Comments

Of all the arguments for using the charrette method, none comes into sharper focus in times like these than the bang-for-the-buck advantage. Well-planned, well-managed charrettes can save both public and private sector clients a ton of time and money. But here’s the hitch: To realize the savings, clients have to take on more responsibility in [...]

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Categories: Benefits of Charrettes · Charrette Organization and Management · Charrette Preparation · Communications/PR · Consultant Needed · Public Participation · Stakeholders · Trainings/Events