THE WELCH COMPANY

440 Davis Court #1602

San Francisco, CA  94111-2496

415 781 5700





November 27, 1996                                                                    03 00070 96112701



Mr. Thompson F. Keesling, Architect
Assistant Chief
Construction Operations Division
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
San Francisco District
333 Market Street; Room 806A
San Francisco, CA  94105 1905

Subject:  Oakland Harbor Project, Contract DACW07-95-C-0003
                 Item Review, Dutra, Port of Oakland, Nov 26, 1996

Dear Tom,


Here are notes of the meeting yesterday
on

Action Items,
with understandings of
pending matters COE indicated it would perform.  The meeting was attended by
Rob Andrews and Ralph Gin for the Port of Oakland.  Communication

problems that
occurred at the weekly Progress Meeting, earlier in the morning, did not occur
at this meeting.  A professional, constructive effort by everyone
occured this afternoon. I sent an email
to Tom White with a copy to you that discusses this latter point.




A draft will be submitted for Marc's approval to transmit the Action Item
review notes to Dutra and to the Port of Oakland.










The meeting was positive, but could have been conducted faster if fewer people
had attended.  Large groups addressing details, like Action Items, require long
explanations of background, contract requirements, contending positions and so
on.  Long meetings make people tired, attention lags and desire builds to go
home, rather than think through difficult issues.  Meetings limited to those
working the details are more productive.  Reports enable stakeholders and
executives to get results and pending follow up.  Under this general rule, it
was planned to limit today's meeting to Marc, Leonard and you, if you and
Leonard were available.




That Herb was able to attend for awhile provided
helpful oversight; and the Port's presence enabled them to observe COE meeting
management methods relative to updating the Project Management Plan, although
it added to the time of the meeting for the reasons given.  This caused the
discussion on updating the

project schedule
to be truncated; so, more time
should be given to that matter in a follow up meeting with Dutra.




Sincerely,


THE WELCH COMPANY






Rod Welch


Copy to:

    

    

  1.  Leonard SooHoo

  2.  Marc McGovern

  3.  Herb Cheong

  4.  Tom White










P.S.  After working with the format for Action Items in SDS records, I am going
to change the structure/design to integrate the Subject Index with the
automatic flagging system to provide a rolling, dynamic methodology.