Conflict: Handling Differences in Groups and Teams
Many group leaders and members say they have a terrible problem with conflict in their groups, meetings, and discussions. Conflict is indeed a significant problem in many types of organizations,...
Overcoming Separation in Time or Space
Groups such as project teams, practice networks, and marketing groups are becoming ever more dispersed and distributed. For example, on a current project for a major water utility, I'm...
Project Team Leadership
In the research lab, design office, fabricating shop, or on construction site, it is the project manager (PM) who must pull diverse talents and personalities into a project team. Depending...
Avoiding Overload
Working for yourself can bring a rewarding sense of independence, but it can also be hectic as you try to be all things to all people. Engineers who start their own companies often find...
Safeguarding Bixby Bridge
The two-lane arch bridge over Bixby Creek�in Big Sur, California�reflects the Art Deco style popular in the early 1930s, when the crossing was built. Its slender deck and arch ribs appear...
Traffic-Calming Basics
The use of traffic calming measures, such as speed humps, traffic circles, and lane narrowings, is becoming more popular in the United States as a way to reduce vehicle speed and traffic...
Tunneling beneath Cairo
The second phase of the Greater Cairo Metro system in Egypt included many geotechnical challenges. Thirteen kilometers of the 19-km heavy rail line were constructed underground within...
A Better Image
As new sources of satellite and aerial data emerge, and as imagery processing software becomes cheaper and easier to use, engineers are tapping remote sensing data's potential...
The Shape of Things to Come
High-performance steel (HPS) offers improved toughness and durability for bridge construction. This article presents several innovative concepts for HPS structural systems�including I-girders...
Designing a Web Site
With the advent of prepackaged software programs that practically set up a Web site by themselves, small engineering firms may assume that designing and operating a Web site is a snap....
Urban Planning and Development Applications of GIS
Sponsored by the Geographic Information Systems Subcommittee of the Urban Planning and Development Division of ASCE. This report provides the most...
When To Sell
For owners of small firms, deciding to sell the business they've founded or owned can be gut-wrenching. But some owners find it's a good way to transfer ownership...
Return of the Master Builder
As projects become more complex and clients demand streamlined design and construction approaches, more consulting companies are attempting to add hard-dollar construction to their scope....
Box Girder Balancing Act
On November 18, 1999, cranes lowered into place the last of 202 precast concrete segments that form the main span of the new Sagadahoc Bridge, a $46.6 million crossing that boasts the...
Sum of the Parts
As with all of the bay bridges that serve as life lines to the San Francisco peninsula, the 32-year-old San Mateo Bridge needs strengthening to withstand a maximum credible earthquake...
Protecting Your Work: Balancing the Competing Interests of Ownership
Your firm has invested days, months�perhaps even years�in its latest project. Your staff have poured their thoughts, ideas, and insights into the creation of a bridge, building, overpass,...
Soil Sampling
This manual addresses the principles, equipment, procedures, limitations for obtaining, handling, and preserving soil samples for geotechical investigations in support of civil and military...
Branching Out (Available in Structural Engineering Special Issue only)
The Cologne/Bonn Airport in Germany is currently undergoing its biggest construction project to date: a $200 million, five-story addition. Close and productive collaboration between the...
New Bern Bypass
To alleviate congestion and offer tourists easier access to their destinations, the North Carolina Department of Transportation decided to reroute U.S. Route 17 out of the historic town...
Designing Better Managers
Designers traditionally have been hired for their technical and creative skills, but in the current tight labor market, they are increasingly taking on the role of project manager, especially...
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