A policy could be depicted as
a group's way of doing things -- something that advances over time and
eventually gets adopted by newer stakeholders. It is a clear expression of an organization's
position on certain issues and guides its stakeholders on how to achieve its
goals.
It is undoubtedly an essential
for any organization as it serves as a pattern or standard that
stakeholders will consult when there's a
dispute concerning the implementation of a particular decision. However,
developing a policy is a long and arduous process.
The Keeley Consulting Group
describes the process of policy development as something that's based not only
on the organization's collective decision on which direction to take but also
on the individual views of its stakeholders.
To easily grasp the essence of developing a policy, here's an overview
of the basics:
- Determine the purpose that a
certain policy will serve in the organization.
- Delegate a team to focus on
driving the policy development forward. The development process could take
several months to finish so there should be a plan detailing who should do the
required tasks and the corresponding timeframe for each.
- Apart from the obvious need
for legal counsel in this research phase, it also requires reading official reports of the
organization and existing legislation and policy documents on related subjects.
Further information can be gathered from a meeting with experts or a survey
among interested parties.
- Prepare a discussion paper
containing a summary of all the information gathered from the research phase as
well as some policy suggestions derived from them.
- An initial consultation with
the stakeholders has to be conducted to get their feedback on the discussion
paper. It is imperative that all interested parties be involved in this phase
in order to create a sensible policy.
- After the stakeholders have
given their views, a draft can now be prepared based on the consultation.
- The updated draft policy has
to undergo further discussion and revisions so it is crucial to get the
stakeholders' feedback again. Any clarifications or semantic concerns should be
dealt with at this point.
- Once the working group has
determined that all concerns regarding the policy has been addressed
satisfactorily, it can now be finalized. The final policy then has to be
adopted formally by the group in a meeting. Also, for the adoption stage to
work, the policy should be effectively communicated all throughout the group,
making sure each stakeholder is well-informed of its implementation.
- Even when it has already
been implemented, a policy could still be fine-tuned and revised. A fixed
timeframe should be set to evaluate its effectiveness (e.g. every 6 months,
every year, etc).
No comments:
Post a Comment