SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/27931
INCLUDE TURF MANAGERS IN DECISIONS To not have an advance understanding of issues and concerns of any one group, as well as not have prepared and devel- oped plans to address these issues and concerns, can lead to the quick erosion of project support. It does not take much to undermine months of work and hundreds of hours spent on the evolution of the project if key research and consensus building among all parties is not proac- tively developed. One example of where effective facili- tation was used was with a city developing new fields in conjunction with a local school district. The public process brought in all the key stakeholders and there was consensus that the fields as planned would serve the needs of the local youth groups scheduled to use these fields. However, the USGA sand-based fields that were planned (and subsequently con- structed), while high-end fields, were not necessarily understood by the mainte- nance staff, nor was the required water use. While these items should be identi- fied before facilitation processes, the in- clusion of the maintenance staff (who were not present at initial project scoping sessions) would have likely shaped what was presented and discussed with the community and user groups. An example how facilitation can be detrimental when the discussed pre-plan- ning processes and alignment among the stakeholders are not completed occurred with a public agency that wanted to re- place several natural grass fields with syn- thetic turf. The owner’s project manager did not fully understand that the agency’s governing board was not fully behind the project’s objective to use synthetic turf to reduce maintenance costs and increase field use. In addition, the local commu- nity surrounding the fields was largely op- posed to the proposed project, due to the environmental and health concerns, as well as the identified increased use. While there was likely nothing that may have fully alleviated these concerns from a small group of neighbors, knowing in advance what the concerns were would have allowed the design professionals time before the facilitation meetings to educate www.stma.org SportsTurf 31 the client on the benefits and issues with synthetic turf, whether real or perceived. In addition, the project manager would have been well-suited to ask superiors whether there was strong support for the project as proposed from all levels, including the deci- sion-makers and governing board. This un- derstanding of the concerns, and where the support was—and most importantly, was not—would have made the facilitation process more effective. While facilitation can bring up issues, it also can be instrumental in developing clear support and consensus for a project. Work with a public agency recently was completed replacing two existing natural grass fields with synthetic turf. Before the project was begun, the city’s project manager in charge of delivering the project completed extensive research on issues other nearby public agen- cies encountered when reconstructing natu- ral grass fields with synthetic turf and how they were/were not addressed. He also made sure that his superiors and the city council fully supported the project before com- mencing the work. By the time that the pre- design effort had begun, much of the re- search had been completed about what the key issues would be with the improvements. As it turned out, the community was fine with the synthetic turf fields, provided field lighting was not installed. But this would not have been known without preliminary research and discussions. Effective facilitation for any project re- volves around providing information for dis- cussion and receiving clear comments and full discussion. Hopefully, there is common ground in support for the project from the community and user groups. In order to maximize the opportunity to achieve this goal, the pre-planning research and rein- forcement that there is solidarity in the pro- ject’s support is a key factor in its successful use of facilitation as a means to obtain proj- ect support. ■ Devin Conway, PE, is principal at Verde Design, Inc., Santa Clara, CA.