EEPP   Program Support Unit 

Functions and Team Building for the PFTC Department, EEAA 

Attachment 18   Note on EEPP Subtask 6.16.1  

Function and Team Building Retreat for PFTC 

The Devil is in the Detail:  Note on EEPP sub task 6.1.6.1:  Functions and Team Building 

Retreat for PFTC,  Mena House, 11 12 April, 2002 by Will Owen 

The Planning, Follow Up and Technical Cooperation (PFTC) Department at the Egyptian 

Environmental Affairs Agency is in the process of change.  For several years this small office 

concentrated on international donor cooperation and Agency executive support.   Over the 

last year the Department has taken on additional functions and more than doubled in size.  

Staff are more specialized and working with more independence.  At the same time they are 

demoralized and threatening to leave. 

Given this background, the overall aim of the retreat was to find ways to strengthen the 

sustainability as well as the performance of the Department.    The actual purpose of the two 

day meeting was to create a common understanding of  the 

1.)  diverse functions of the PFTC or Planning Department within the Agency, 

2.)  the types of work outputs that contribute to each of those functions as well as 

3.)  alternative organizational structures or clusters/teams of staff that would serve those 

functions. 

Eng. Dahlia Lotayef consolidated the discussions of the first day with a proposal to structure 

the Planning Department into four teams:  

1.) international relations and funding, 

2.)  national relations and project development, 

3.)  Agency planning and follow up, 

4.)  the executive secretariat. 

She acknowledged that greater specialization could evolve over the years.  An easy example 

would be for Agency planning and follow up to become a planning unit and a follow up unit. 

To test the level of understanding and agreement around the 4 team proposal, the staff 

worked in groups to list the expected outputs for each team.   Knowing that  the devil is in 

the detail,  PFTC members specified each team output and thereby better judged the strength 

of the tentative agreements they had just made about the PFTC functions and organizational 

structure. 

The methods of the workshop (iteration; 3

rd

 party facilitation; small group work; use of 

flipcharts, overheads, brainstorming) were tools that provided structure to the decision 

making of the entire PFTC group.   The workshop process modeled techniques PFTC staff 

could select in the future to offer decision support to other departments within the Agency.  

The retreat benefited from the courtesy visit of the Minister of State for Environmental 

Affairs, His Excellency, Dr. Mamdouh Riad Tadros.  The Minister talked informally to PFTC 

members about the importance of their work, especially that done with donors.  He also 

looked at the organizational proposals that were under discussion and thanked the group for 

 34 

INTERNATIONAL RESOURCES GROUP