Envisioning and Scoping Criteria

Envisioning Exercise

The first activity of the day was an envisioning exercise. The purpose of this exercise was to get participants thinking about what would make the course a success. With this in mind, they would then be able to begin shaping the course to meet the ideas of success. The participants were broken into shared perspective breakout groups and were encouraged to imagine themselves in the following scenario 2 years from now:

The course just finished its first year and is a great success. High profile magazines from Fortune to the Journal of Environmental Quality are praising this course for its economically savvy approach to freight and the environment. Government-sponsored courses rarely get this reception, but this course seems to have "hit the ball out the park" in terms of delivering practical knowledge that its attendees can act on right away.

The participants were then asked to brainstorm answers to the following questions:

• What made this course a success?
• What are some of they key results/outcomes (be specific)?
• Who is praising this course (name names or kinds of people, and publications)?
• What are they saying (Quotes)?

Each breakout group identified a number of visions and expectations for the course. They also came up with a number of creative quotes that expressed ideal outcomes for the course:

"National Resources Defense Council says 'every freight manager should take this course'"
"AAR and ATA explain that members now understand and support environmental expectations and their role."
"Freight is finally a good neighbor."
"Opposing sides share point of view."
"NIMBYs Become IMBYs"

It was noted that many of the ideas shared common themes across both groups. A list of vision themes was created and participants were encouraged to keep these themes in mind as they continued throughout the day.

Vision Themes

• Promote the reality that making freight projects environmentally friendly is good business and good politics.
• Gain widespread recognition and attention for crossing barriers and aligning perspectives toward shared goals/higher ground among previously "opposing views."
• Promote and develop role models who will extend these practices in their communities.
• Address public and private sector needs/perspectives.
• Enhance a more positive public perception of freight transportation.

Scoping Criteria

Following the envisioning exercise, attendees were kept in the shared perspective groups and were asked to identify criteria to be used in considering candidate topic areas for the proposed course based on the vision themes that were previously defined. For example, criteria might include topics that relate to both freight and environmental considerations/impacts, or topics that promote and/or supports improved mobility for passenger and freight transportation.

Once again, many of the ideas were shared between the two breakout groups. Perhaps one of the most common themes heard in this session and throughout the day was that the course must present a "big picture" overview to get all students on the same page. This big picture overview should give students an awareness of the high-level environmental issues relevant to freight movement across all modes as well as the stakeholders and key players and their processes, constraints, and shared goals. With this in mind, course attendees would then be able to understand more clearly the issues discussed during the course, and when they return to their workplace, they would, hopefully, have a better understanding of how best to work with other stakeholders to mitigate environmental issues.

Many other ideas were also voiced during this session and the identified criteria were summarized into the guidelines for course development shown in Table 2.

Table 2 - Guidelines for Course Development

The course should…
Provide a big picture overview.
Include the public and private sectors.
Identify and promote win-win solutions.
Address practical and solvable issues.
Be action-oriented and enable application of what was learned to an actual project.
Address priority issues. (However, what is considered priority may depend on the geographical area.)
Address multimodal issues.

These criteria, or guidelines, were again reviewed later in the day and were used to evaluate the training needs identified in a later breakout session. In addition to identifying guidelines for course development, the participants also volunteered some ideas about the format of the course. These ideas are included in a later section of this report.

A listing of all of the criteria comments heard during the breakout session is included in Appendix B.

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