AASHTO | Roadmap for Developing Programmatic Agreements

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sections

BUILDING TRUST

Avoid the obvious trust killers

Express appreciation

Be professional

Invest in relationships

Invest in knowledge

Remember that a professional disagreement is a professional disagreement; never let it get personal.

Ensure staff meets professional standards and that they keep upgrading their skills so that other agencies will believe that you can take on additional responsibilities. Consider a staff exchange or other mechanism to help understand the process and problems of other agencies and they can understand yours

Emphasize face-to-face meetings at all levels in the management hierarchy Address issues promptly, do not let them linger and

Keep your promises

Recognize success and high- achievement

Honor your commitments

Admit your mistakes and remedy them, no matter what it costs

become larger problems later

DEVELOPING PROGRAMMATIC AGREEMENTS WITH NO EXISTING RELATIONSHIP OR TRUST Start small – if everyone has a good experience with a small agreement, they will be more willing to enter into larger ones later. • Develop a simple agreement covering some small, discrete part of the compliance process (a particular resource type, a type of project). • Make sure the agreement saves time and work and focuses on preservation. • Ensure that all parties get something out of the agreement that they really want. Make sure that your agency not only performs well under the agreement, but goes the extra mile. Acknowledge the problem • Sit down with the other agencies and candidly discuss the situation • Ask everyone to work toward a new relationship and identify some possible trust-building steps that you might take to become better partners.

Bring in a neutral party as a negotiator early in the PA development process • Choose a person who understands the process gov- erned by the PA (e.g., Section 106) but has no stake in whatever problems there are among the parties • Secure at least general agreement from all parties on the choice of the negotiator. • Arrange for the negotiator to meet with each of the parties separately in their own offices. • The negotiator should: • assure all parties of absolute confidentiality for any comments made at these meetings • elicit from each party what (in a perfect world) they would most like to have happen in the PA • determine what (in the current, very imperfect world) each party is most afraid will happen if the PA is developed and implemented • discuss with each party measures that might be included in the PA to “bomb-proof” it against the things that they fear will go wrong

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