Workshop Information
Session 1
Monday, September 24
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
1A: The Role of the Design Senior
This workshop will go over the key knowledge, skills, and abilities that are expected of a Project Development Design Senior. Discussion will include some of the expectations of the Design Senior as it relates to the overall goals of the Department. With the Director's Commitment to deliver projects as promised through the Contract for Delivery, the Design Senior will be an integral part in the decision making, work plans, and process improvements for the Department’s success.
1B. Achieving a Balanced Design
1C. Effective Leadership and Team Building Workshop
Effective leadership and teambuilding begins with one person – you. During the workshop you will have the opportunity to interactively explore the real-time challenges of leadership and building your teams. Learn how to motivate and capitalize on the work style strengths and differences of team members. Hands-on activities and skill building are included.
1D. Conflict Resolution
As a Design Senior, conflict resolution is a primary communication skill needed as an effective first line supervisor or manager. Staff demands you to lead in resolving conflict between staff, project priorities, or project values. Although this is an introductory session, it will have engaging examples from which you will be able apply these concepts back in your office.
1E. Communication Keys
Communication, in one form or another, is woven into the fabric of ever so many activities; studies indicate that it is common for many workers to spend 80% or more of their day engaged in various kinds of communication. Communication among humans is complex enough that it will never be perfect, but it can almost always be improved. This workshop looks at some of the dos and don’ts for achieving the best possible level of communication with others in your work setting. There will also be a segment of time to raise and discuss specific communication challenges you may be facing.
Session 2
Monday, September 24
2:15 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
2A. Tools for Effective Projects: Value Analysis & RTL Guide
This brief workshop will take you through the benefits of Value Analysis (VA). In addition to a discussion of the new federal mandates, participants will discover how Caltrans uses VA as a tool in project delivery. Tools include Cost/Risk analysis, stakeholder involvement, consensus building, performance measurements and process improving applications. The Caltrans VA job plan, when applied properly, has yielded some outstanding results.
2B. FHWA Stewardship & Record of Involvement
During this workshop you will learn about the possible changes in the 2008 Stewardship Agreement and of a new tool to help document a project's compliance with this and the current agreement.
2C. Effective Leadership and Team Building Workshop (repeat)
Effective leadership and teambuilding begins with one person – you. During the workshop you will have the opportunity to interactively explore the real-time challenges of leadership and building your teams. Learn how to motivate and capitalize on the work style strengths and differences of team members. Hands-on activities and skill building are included.
2D. Legal Lessons – Personnel Issues
A presentation discussing how supervisors and managers' activities in the workplace may expose them and their employer to potential liability in civil litigation and steps that can be taken to minimize such risk.
2E. Communication Keys (repeat)
Communication, in one form or another, is woven into the fabric of ever so many activities; studies indicate that it is common for many workers to spend 80% or more of their day engaged in various kinds of communication. Communication among humans is complex enough that it will never be perfect, but it can almost always be improved. This workshop looks at some of the dos and don’ts for achieving the best possible level of communication with others in your work setting. There will also be a segment of time to raise and discuss specific communication challenges you may be facing.
Session 3
Monday, September 24
3:35 p.m. – 4:35 p.m.
3A. Roadside Safety and Trends in Landscape Architecture
This one-hour session is designed to teach highway planners and designers through lectures, exercises, and visual presentations the issues involved in the design of safe and appropriate roadsides; State and Federal Legislation; Caltrans goals and policies, as well as the fundamental principles, concepts and challenges to ensure that cost effective, safe and appropriate roadside design is accommodated in the development of transportation projects. Students will learn tools to reach out to and develop relationships with roadside design stakeholders and how to ask the right questions of the PDT to ensure roadside design issues are addressed in the project planning, project development, construction and maintenance phases. Design procedures and standards defined in the Project Development Procedure Manual, Highway Design Manual, Storm water guidance and AASHTO green book will be also covered.
3B. Quality Management for Design
Quality Management for Design session will entail a historic perspective of the department’s efforts in consensus of defining and measuring quality. Design seniors are responsible for assuring the design branch services and products, we will present current practices and ideas being used by design staff. This workshop will present current direction and plans of deployment for establishing quality. We will also present the quality management systems used by other state agencies.
3C. Getting the Most from your Team – Mentoring and Coaching
Development and retention of your team involves mentoring and coaching. Expectations, assumptions and practical steps of creating and conducting a mentoring or coaching relationship will be discussed. Learn through hands-on exercises to gain comfort and experience in being a coach and mentor.
3D. Legal Lessons – Your Design on Trial
The workshop will focus on developing an understanding of the Department's exposure to tort liability and its causes and defenses with respect to design professionals, and will also teach design engineers effective witness skills.
3E: Change and Change Management
Constant change is the order of the day. There is no way for you to prevent change. Everything CHANGES. Your only real choice is whether to be proactive or reactive about it. Effective leaders are essentially Change Masters. This workshop explores 1) how to learn to love, change and become an option thinker, 2) how to create an atmosphere where change is viewed as natural, normal, necessary and expected, and 3) how to implement changes.
Session 4
Monday, September 24
4:50 p.m. – 5:50 p.m.
4A. Pavement Design and Strategy
This session will discuss what designers roles are related to pavement design and what designers need to know about pavements when designing projects. Session will discuss recent changes in standards and designs, the new life cycle cost analysis policy, pavement asset management and how pavement designs are selected.
4B. Design for Safety – Traffic Perspective
4C. Getting the Most from your Team – Mentoring and Coaching (repeat)
Development and retention of your team involves mentoring and coaching. Expectations, assumptions and practical steps of creating and conducting a mentoring or coaching relationship will be discussed. Learn through hands-on exercises to gain comfort and experience in being a coach and mentor.
4D. Multi Modal Design and Considerations
This one-hour session is designed to teach highway planners and designers through lectures, exercises, and visual presentations how to identify, address and accommodate non-motorized travel needs, State and Federal Legislation and Caltrans goals and policies, as well as the fundamental principles, concepts and challenges to ensure non-motorized travel is safely accommodated in the development of transportation projects. The needs of, and the methods to accommodate, bicyclists and pedestrians should not be segregated from transportation design but rather integrally considered and addressed on most projects. Students will learn tools to reach out to and develop relationships with non-motorized travel experts and how to ask the right questions of the PDT to ensure that the needs of bicyclists and pedestrians remain integral within project planning and project development. Design procedures and standards defined in the Project Development Procedure Manual, Highway Design Manual in Caltrans, Americans with Disabilities Act and AASHTO green book will be also covered.
4E: Change and Change Management (repeat)
Constant change is the order of the day. There is no way for you to prevent change. Everything CHANGES. Your only real choice is whether to be proactive or reactive about it. Effective leaders are essentially Change Masters. This workshop explores 1) how to learn to love, change and become an option thinker, 2) how to create an atmosphere where change is viewed as natural, normal, necessary and expected, and 3) how to implement changes.
Session 5
Tuesday, September 25
9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
5A. The Effects of Emerging Technology on Surveying and Design
5B. Scoping it Right the First Time
This workshop will give the overview of the process for identifying and developing a project from its inception. You will be given an understanding of the various Planning functions and how good planning establishes a foundation for scope development. The mystery of how and who forms the “Need and Purpose” for a project and its importance to regional and system planning, eliminates the guest work for design teams in producing and developing deliverables. The question of where a project comes from, did we deliver what we promised and who is our ultimate customer will be discussed. The early planning phases and processes lead us to a need and purpose and through to the scoping document. Scoping it “right” the first time comes from the understanding of system planning, regional planning, customer needs and partnering. With the coordinated efforts, and the collective wisdom, the scope, and the ultimate project deliverables necessary to meet the need and purpose will be achieve. This workshop will help you understand and stay on course and efficiently deliver the right project the first time, thereby bridging Planning, Programming, and Design- and through the improvements life cycle, Scoping it Right the First Time.
5C. How to Maintain Quality on an Emergency Project, “The McArthur Maze Reconstruction Story”
5D. More Tools for Effective Projects: Document Retrieval System & Mapping with Goggle Earth
A pilot program created by District 8 to manage Oversight of Local Agency funded projects. It currently is being utilized as a tracking tool for deliverables from Consultants/Local Agencies and District 8 functional units. It also functions as a Task Management tool for project assignments to the group and/or key personnel involved in a specific project. It also tracks a project's history. Its intended output is to eventually Measure Performance of the Consultants/Local Agencies and the District on Project Delivery.
The CALTRANS Document Retrieval System (DRS) is a set of web forms that allows anyone to Search, View, and Print documents over the CALTRANS intranet using a browser and the appropriate plug-ins (AlternaTIFF for TIF files, MrSid for SID files, and WebDGN for DGN files). It allows the individual to use a browser to search for documents using criteria that is stored in a database such as county, route, post mile, Expenditure Authorization, etc. Once search criteria are entered, a list of documents that fit those criteria appears. One of its main purposes is to be a repository for archive-ready As-built roadway plans and make them readily available statewide to all employees, expanding its use to include final Right of Way maps, Survey files, and other final archived documents.
5E: NEPA Delegation
Where no State Has Gone Before Effective July 1, 2007, FHWA assigned its responsibilities for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and its coordination and consultation responsibilities under other Federal environmental laws to Caltrans.
Caltrans now makes its own NEPA decisions on most highway projects in California. This workshop will help you understand delegation and its benefits, the changes it will bring to our environmental processes, and what it means to you.
Session 6
Tuesday, September 25
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
6A. Assessing and Managing Risk
As one of the Department's strategies, Risk Management enables a project team to identify, analyze, and develop appropriate responses for monitoring and managing project risks through the project lifecycle. This workshop will explore how to develop a risk management plan on Caltrans projects.
6B. Designing a Successful TMP
Transportation Management Plans (TMPs) are required for all activities on the state highway system. The purpose of a TMP is to provide a plan for how to manage traffic flow in work zones where traffic capacity may be reduced. Minor activities like maintenance or smaller or short-term capital projects may warrant that minimal information is provided to the public, while projects that may have major traffic impacts may warrant full-blown TMP reports and a major public awareness campaign before construction even begins. The presentation will provide information on: Why we use TMPs; what makes up a TMP; TMP Process steps; Designer’s Role in the TMP Process; Possible ways to reduce traffic congestion through project and planning and design.
6C. What’s New in Stormwater
6D. Partnering with Office Engineers
The workshop will review the foundations for partnering and how they apply to getting a project to "Ready to List (RTL)". The workshop will cover the laws and court rulings that frame:
1. The partnership with the Office Engineer and
2. The subsequent partnership with the contractor.
Partnering requires the Office Engineer to end its traditional role of project quality judge attempting to inspect quality into a project at the end of project development. The workshop will provide an overview of the efforts Office Engineer is making to ensure a project is ready to advertise when delivery to the Division of Engineering Services – Office Engineer.
6E: Machine Guidance Technology
Session 7
Tuesday, September 25
2:15 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
7A. Design for Safety – Maintenance Perspective
Worker and public safety is Maintenance’s top priority. We preserve and maintain California’s infrastructure and assets so travelers and goods reach their destination safely and efficiently. In order to provide these services, workers are repeatedly exposed to traffic when performing maintenance activities. A joint effort between all programs involved throughout the project development process will ensure that quality projects are properly scoped with design solutions that meet Department goals and objectives. A total value approach should always be taken for every project to evaluate not only the scope and cost, but also the success of the project from inception, through design, construction, and maintenance. A shared goal between Design and Maintenance is to have a low maintenance system that is safe for workers, provides safe travel for users, and also provides years of service life.
7B. WOW Project 1- I-15 Managed Lanes
The Interstate 15 Managed Lanes Project -- sometimes referred to as a freeway within a freeway -- will construct a 20-mile managed lanes facility in the median of I-15 from State Route 163 to State Route 78. The Managed Lanes feature four HOV lanes that will be open 24-hours per day, have multiple access points, and can be re-configured to accommodate directional peak flows using a movable barrier and barrier transfer machine. The projects will also add auxiliary lanes to both southbound and northbound lanes, modify ramps, and construct direct access ramps servicing planned transit stations near the freeway that will incorporate a Bus Rapid Transit System. The total cost of the freeway and transit improvements is estimated to be $1.1 billion in current dollars.
7C. Relinquishments/Route Adoptions and Freeway Agreements
This workshop will tell you almost everything you have ever wanted to know about relinquishments, route adoptions and freeway agreements. We'll cover issues like the role of the documents in getting a project approved, the costs to relinquish a road, and why we discourage changing the text of a freeway agreement!
7D. Cost Estimating Tools
This presentation provides an overview of Caltrans basic tools and policy changes for cost estimating. The various estimating tools including software, databases, training, and value analysis, as well as the various types of estimating that are in use today and under development will be presented. The challenges that the Department is facing (and the prospects for the near future) will be discussed as well.
7E: Right of Way Developments
Discussion of project delivery challenges from a Right of Way perspective, including topics such as SB 1210 and schedule impacts, recent R/W process innovations, training and future trends.