Role playing also assists in negotiation and coalition building, where participants test potential consensus points. Role playing requires a trained leader from within or outside the agency who is clear about the goals. This leader must be skilled at designing representative situations and scenarios that are applicable to the real-life situation. The leader should also be knowledgeable about areas of conflict and able to guide the group toward resolution. Finally, she or he must be able to lead the evaluation and engage participants in discussing the process, the lessons learned, and their rele vance to real-world transportation issues.
Costs tend to be high in terms of staffing.
If a trained leader is not available within the agency, a consultant knowledgeable about the issues needs to be hired for one or more days. Preparation time for developing the roles and the situation is extensive, depending on the complexity of the real-life problems. Even skilled consultants or staff require several dry runs and revision cycles to get the role play right. Agency staff sometimes finds that oversight of consultants is demand ing in terms of time and energy to assure that they fully understand the issues to be covered. Role playing is part of an ongoing process to develop cooperation among participants.