On Policy Making:
- Decision making in a policy framework requires a sequence of certain activities to achieve committed policy targets.
- The decision making process follows a generic structure, described as a Policy Cycle.
- The figure below shows our 6 policy cycle stages and exemplary advice.
- The policy cycle is not limited to one single process. Policy making requires integrated decision making, addressing a range of challenges and issues through various processes.
- A consultancy may cover one or several stages or the entire policy cycle, e.g. to support integrated large scale projects, like Smart City Development.
The stages of the Policy Cycle:
- Identify appropriate data and indicators for issue identification,
- Define right priorities to solve most urgent problems first,
- Draft possible future scenarios to explore the impact of alternative solutions,
- Design a convincing process by involving citizens and stakeholders to include all opinions, commit strategies, negotiate measures, and finally reach acceptance in decision making,
- Support and observe the implementation of the committed strategies and measures,
- Monitor, assess and evaluate the impact of strategies and (implemented) measures.
Exemplary consultancy referring to the policy cycle stages:
Smart City Strategy design and measure implementation process:
- Setting up a monitoring concept with data selection, indicator definition, data acquisition and monitoring implementation to investigate and assess certain issues – e. g. air quality, local heat exposure, traffic load, energy carried consumption, just to mention a few monitoring topics.
- Setting the political agenda by identifying priorities among the various issues to be solved – e.g. through data synthesis and multi-criteria assessment.
- Developing models, running simulations or using the latest recommended horizon scanning and future scenario development methodology to design and assess qualitative or quantitative scenarios of alternative future development. This can be undertaken as an expert-only activity or through stakeholder and administration involvement.
- Designing participatory engagement processes, including stakeholders and citizens to enhance their involvement in decision making and secure acceptance of decisions on strategies and measures.
- Guiding, accompanying, and observing the implementation process.
- Assessing the results through setting up a monitoring concept and an appropriate ex post impact assessment protocol.
