Facilitation

Agree is a full service conflict management firm offering a variety of group facilitation processes.  These include construction and non-construction Partnering, relationship and team capacity building workshops and other consensus building processes, as well as training focused on the effective management of conflict.  Agree customizes our facilitations to address unique organizational needs, while ensuring meaningful involvement of participants.

Our experience includes:

  • Team Restoration and Relationship Capacity Building Workshops
  • Construction Partnering (including P3 projects)
  • Joint Venture Partnering and Inter-departmental Alignment workshops
  • Strategic Planning and Visioning
  • Corporate Circles

Team Restoration and Relationship Capacity Building

For organizations that experience persistent conflict within or between departments, or recurring conflict between management and staff, a Relationship Capacity Building Workshop can help re-set the dynamics.  

Relationship Capacity Building and Team Restoration workshops are used in situations where the workplace community needs to address complex issues or requires a re-setting of the community norms around respect and civility, or interdependencies and accountabilities.  This group facilitation provides growth experiences for each member of the team and builds a cohesive working team.   Team Restorations are often part of a continuum of Workplace Assessment, and sometimes preliminary interventions such as mediation or coaching

Workshops are designed with a “future-focus” to assist teams in moving from “dwelling on the problem” to collectively developing solutions.  Agree facilitators help participants identify the “ideal” relationship and the barriers to achieving that ideal.  The workshop is “hard on the problem” and “soft on the people”, emphasizing not on who to blame, but how the group can work together cooperatively to achieve common objectives. 


Agree is a pioneer in the facilitation of Partnering workshops in construction, financial, labour relations and health care sectors.  Agree has adapted the Partnering model to relationship management in joint ventures, union/management relationship building and public/private partnerships (P3’s).

Partnering is a facilitated process for aligning the business interests of a constellation of firms involved in a project to assist them in leveraging their strengths and mitigating the effects of competing interests on the business relationship.  It highlights the interdependencies of the “Partners” and their need to deliberately invest in the success of one another to achieve both their shared and individual goals.  It offers strategies and specific tools for achieving collaborative problem solving, proactive conflict management and issue resolution. 

Partnering is nothing less than designing and planning for the business relationship you want.  Partnering offers great value and yet, like any good design, the beneficial value is greatest when it occurs early in the project when problem solving patterns are not yet set and the relationship is not burdened with a history of stress and strain. 

Surveys of Canadian players in the construction industry describe improved working relationships, improved integration of end user needs, and more timely decision-making on Partnered jobs. 

Agree is a Canadian leader in designing and facilitating partnering workshops for P3 projects.  For complex P3 projects, Agree can facilitate workshops at key stages of the project:

·      design/finance

·      construction

·      commissioning/transitioning

·      operations/maintenance


Joint Venture Partnering and Inter-Departmental Alignment

Win / win relationships do not just happen.  Collaboration does not occur easily or even naturally.  People and businesses are naturally competitive and self-protecting.

Organizations that need to leverage off of one another in order to succeed, require a process to follow to both protect them and to unleash the creativity and synergies that cause them to go into these relationships in the first place.  Collaboration is not a happy accident.  It is the pursuit of a deliberate and disciplined set of principles, and stated and met expectations, which allow organizations to learn how to take measured and proportional risks together.

Partnering is a process for aligning the business interests of all firms involved in a project to assist them in maximizing their strengths and minimizing the effects of competing interests on the business relationship.  It highlights the interdependencies of the “Partners,” and shows them how to promote each other’s success in order to meet both their shared and individual goals.  It offers strategies and specific tools for effectively resolving potential conflict and fostering creative problem solving in a trust-based relationship.

Partnering is nothing less than designing and planning for the business relationship you want.  Partnering offers great value and yet, like any good design, the beneficial value is greatest when it occurs early in the project when problem solving patterns are not yet set and the relationship is not burdened with a history of stress and strain. 

The “Partnered” Approach is also effective between departments within organizations who need to work closely together on a common project and who need to ensure alignment between the units in order to achieve success.


Strategic Planning & Visioning

Agree employs a structured approach which is respectful of participants’ knowledge and beliefs while challenging many of the core assumptions people make that prevent them from recognizing alternatives.  Agree uses an interest-based approach and asks the kind of questions that address the underlying individual and organizational needs that ultimately give rise to opportunities  and creative, effective solutions.


The Circle process originates among First Nations communities, who for centuries used community circles to deal with difficult issues and where decisions need to be made.  The Circle process is useful in workplaces where there are deeply-rooted disputes or there is a need for a public “clearing of the air” about a specific incident in the recent or distant past which has been hampering working relationships.