Well, the long-awaited charette happened over the weekend.
It was interesting.
As much as I complained about the arty-fartyness of the exercises (and I still maintain that it was arty-farty) I actually think that I did gain something from it. Having to work with a group of six other people you have never met on a project you know nothing about with a deadline the next day is absolutely intense, but I think that it was actually worth it.
The scenario we were given at 5:00 Friday was that the Hong Kong Airport Consortium were proposing to extend the runway in the Hobart Airport to allow for truly international flights and were asking for tenders from interested environmental consultancies to prepare the environmental impact statement.
The main problem with the proposal is that because of the location of the airport the runway extension would have to go partway into the estuary and cut off most of the water circulation into Barilla Bay (where the oysters are grown). There are also complications with a RAMSAR listed wetland (a wetland of international significance for migratory bird species) across the estuary, several endangered plant species, the aquaculture industry, and a small endangered starfish with a population stronghold in the close proximity. All of these factors had to be researched and we had to come up with ways of mitigating the impacts on the environment (by the way, this scenario isn't actually fictitious, apparently it was proposed in the 90's, but was turned down because of the environmental problems) and prepare a presentation by 2:00 Saturday.
My team chose to be known as Doyen Environmental Consulting because it is a French word meaning "expert"or "leader in the field" ('and that's exactly what we are'- the opening line of our presentation). We had a few problems in getting the research done and compiling it into a 15min PowerPoint (and 5 minutes of question time), especially when some of the slides randomly went missing 2 minutes before the presentation was due, but we got it done.
The panel of experts (from real consulting firms and the Department) retired to reach a decision for half an hour. In the end at 5:00 Saturday, we were awarded 2nd place and a certificate for "The Most Professional Presentation," but the $200,000 contract (novelty check and 6-pack) went to EcoScope Consulting and two good friends of mine.
And then I was exhausted.
And I still am.
I'm going to bed.
2 comments:
Well done.
I think you had a much harder time that we did. Although we had "someone" in our group at least we knew each others work style. Well at least I did cause I have worked with all the girls in my group before and have had Scott in most of my classes. The only one I hadnt worked with was Michael. I think your group did a great job and I think deserved to win. However, I am in love with my novelty check and am not giving it up. Sorry.
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