Civil engineering

These assignments are focused on providing with you valuable insight to augment the technical skills you developed in your baccalaureate program.

For the topic, pretend that you have one hour to intensively interview someone.
Your response should be well thought out and summarize the critical findings of your research, reflection, interview.
The experience required to write about the topic may be obtained directly (i.e., being there), or through interviews with members of engineering practice who can describe the experience in detail.

Topic: Client Meetings

Address the following:

In what situations would a meeting be initiated by the designer? In what situations by the client?
For the example situations described above, who sets the meeting agenda and controls the flow the meeting?
Describe the differences in meeting content if an owner is present versus only technical personnel (e.g., an architectural firm is the client and the owner of the project is not present).
Describe the company policy (formal or informal) regarding client contact. Is it a single point of contact or many? Why?
Attend a client meeting or discuss a recent client meeting with a member of your firm.
Briefly describe the project. You can leave out the name if needed for confidentiality reasons. Provide enough information to understand the magnitude and type of project (e.g., 15 story condominium in Florida).
Who attended the meeting? Include titles, positions, and affiliations (client representative, representative of your firm, or other entity), but do not include names.
What was main the purpose of the meeting (e.g., periodic update, problem on the project, kickoff meeting, design review meeting)?
Describe the level of formality and general tenor of the meeting. How would each of these items change based on the purpose of the meeting?
Describe methods that the representatives of your firm used to assure the client that the project would be successfully completed? Focus on how challenging situations or difficult questions were addressed.
Did representatives of your firm use time with the client (before, during, or after the meeting) to do marketing of other services or for other projects? If so, describe methods used.