SMITH/Associates provides collaborative strategies to bring together personnel from technical, scientific, military and government backgrounds.

Partnering Facilitation is a process designed to guide the work that people and organizations do, enhance efficiency and improve effectiveness, reduce costs and process timelines, improve the quality of products and services, and cultivate positive, long-term working relationships both within and outside of an organization. The result is stronger relationships with people and organizations within and outside of their immediate group. Effective facilitation assists in meeting cost objectives. Actions performed by SMITH/Associates include leading meetings, building teams, moderating discussions, managing conflict, raising issues, evaluating meeting success, drafting agendas, recording action items, identifying lessons learned, and assigning due dates and responsible parties.

We have facilitated over 350 environmental and organizational partnering meetings, more than 300 construction partnering sessions, and numerous other organizational and interagency meetings.

Examples of facilitation services include:

• Team Building
• Collaborative Training
• Issue Resolution/Mediation
• Partnering
• Project Management
• Communication Strategies

Service – A Customized Approach

At SMITH/Associates, we recognize that differing circumstances require differing approaches and that collaborative planning and problem-solving are founded in trust and effective communication. We understand that each situation is unique and ensure a customized approach to achieving client objectives. Our approach includes:

• • An awareness of the environments in which we work. We do not serve as technical experts but rather as a bridge to link experts in various fields and specialties to effectively complete a project or reach a goal.
  • Spending time understanding a particular group’s history and current situation to determine which approaches will be most beneficial to meeting both short and long term goals.
  • A concentrated effort to keep groups connected and engaged. We do more than just show up to facilitate an event. We coordinate agendas and meetings, develop and present training sessions, provide event management services, and conduct public outreach as required utilizing face to face meetings, teleconferences, e-mail, and web-based resources.
  • An understanding that partnering is not an event, but is instead a purposeful process based upon shared data and information about the project, the participants, and the culture within which the work is executed.
  • A focus on goal achievement and results. We concentrate on the way decisions are made, meetings are managed, problems are solved and participants interact with each other.