Developing a Simple System for Public Involvement Conflict Management

This report describes a project to develop a simple system for managing conflict in transportation project public involvement. This work was focused on finding simple methods for managing less challenging projects and was aimed toward those who may do public involvement only occasionally. The conflict management framework is derived from a distillation of expert opinion, based on discussions of specific projects by Minnesota transportation public involvement experts.

The framework is comprised of two components. The first is a simple organizational scheme for categorizing conflict to assist in determining the appropriate management strategy. The second part is the management strategies themselves. Key among these are principles for managing stakeholder relations so as to preclude the occurrence of conflict to the extent possible.