overview

About the Workshop

Research with engineers and project managers has identified that wherever there is interface and interaction between two or more groups/disciplines on a project, there are clashes. Each discipline blames the other for any problems that arise. A lot of this is due to the lack of:

• Appreciation for each other’s roles and responsibilities
• Effective communication and dialogue between project participants

There is a fundamental void of knowledge, appreciation and understanding of the complex interdependency of roles, responsibilities, and technical challenges that affect the success of multi-disciplinary rail projects – in design, planning, procurement, construction, commissioning and operations. As we know too well, knowledge and skills are traditionally ‘siloed’ to individual disciplines.

This workshop aims to close the gaps outlined above. It provides a formal avenue to share and develop an appreciation for each other’s project contributions and requirements through education, problem solving, workshops and insightful, productive discussion.

In summary, this workshop will be about the people who do it on a daily basis;

• How does each discipline interface with each other? Where are the gaps?
• How do people work together and achieve their objectives? Is this effective?
• What is important to each discipline in a project environment?
• What do we need to know to do our jobs better and achieve optimal outcomes?

The workshop is endorsed by the RTSA www.rtsa.com.au and participants are eligible for CPD with the RTSA.

What’s in it for you and your team?

• Learn in detail what each key job/discipline in a project environment entails in terms of its goals, constraints, challenges, issues, how each discipline inter-relates with each other
• Learn how to utilise understanding of other disciplines to improve not only how you work together, but how to improve overall project outcomes and perform at your optimum
• Benefit from a much broader and informed position from which to interact with project participants and contribute to outcomes with greater meaning, purpose and active contribution
• Take away a project blueprint to utilise back at work, derived first-hand, in a collaborative workshop environment – a great continual reference point consisting of the workshop’s key learnings, including diagrams, charts, commentary, debate and discussion made over the duration

Who will benefit

This workshop has been designed for all those who work in the rail environment on projects, predominately design, development and delivery.

• Design and construction engineers will gain an understanding of how their particular disciplines interface with the other disciplines
• Project managers will benefit from seeing how the various engineering disciplines combine to deliver an operating railway
• Engineers and operators will gain valuable insights about how engineering disciplines work together to provide an integrated project that delivers a railway that meets the business and operating requirements

Workshop Structure

This is a unique, detailed examination of the various disciplines involved in the rail environment in a presentation/Q&A format, followed by interactive case-study workshop based learning session.

Discipline presentations:

• The workshop facilitators will explain ‘the project case study’ that is to be workshopped with its varying and conflicting requirements, KPIs, challenges and constraints. This is the project that each speaker will refer to in their presentation
• The speakers will explain what their particular discipline comprises of; its purpose as a discipline, and what their discipline requires from the other disciplines when working on a project.
  – Explain the issues relating to their specific discipline and provide examples of problems and challenges they have faced when working on projects
  – Relate their role to ‘the project case study’ and how they will approach the project from their discipline
  – Expand on the interfaces between theirs and other disciplines and who they need to work with and gain cooperation from for project success
• Intertwined between each presentation, the facilitators will guide the presenters and the participants to contribute comments, concerns, thoughts and what actually happens ‘on the field’
• The overall goal is to optimise the learning and insights for all participants to help optimise project outcomes

Workshop Session

• The goal of this ‘workshop’ component is to explore and put into practice the insights from the project discipline sessions, particularly the interfaces between the disciplines and the reliance of one discipline on another
• This session will be facilitated and interactive
• The session will be structured around a complex case study of The Sydney Light Rail Project. It will allocate certain challenges and problems that will be tackled by each group
• The participants will be split into groups to work more effectively on this project case study