For some time now we have been urging our students not to think of a charrette as a public involvement process but rather as an accelerated, collaborative design process. Although charrettes include a successful method for involving broad groups of stakeholders, the power of the charrette goes beyond its role as a design-based public involvement process. Charrettes do not solve problems through mediation or conflict resolution. Charrettes solve problems through collaborative design.

The greater value of a charrette lies in its capacity to solve complex problems that resist a conventional linear approach, such as community planning. Community planning involves an intricate relationship between multiple disciplines, typically planning, transportation engineering, economics, environmental engineering and others. Each discipline has their own standards based on solving their problem.

In a conventional approach these disciplines work in isolation, solving their problems through their limited understanding of the deeper issues. Too often a solution for the traffic engineer causes problems for the land planner. The solution for the land planner causes problems for the economist. The solution for the retailer causes problems for the land planner. This results in dysfunctional planning and animosity between disciplines. In a charrette people begin to see the problem in bigger terms. They see the whole and in seeing the whole they become willing to let go of their conventional approach to work as a collaborative team to solve the core issues even if it means changing the way they work and see things. Charrettes foster collaborative problem solving of complex problems by creating a team of holistic-minded practitioners out of specialists.