Development Pathways Tool: Leading level skills

Each profile begins with the description of that skill (taken directly from the Policy Skills Framework), followed by a summary of the content from the Framework.

Understands how the constitutional roles of the three branches of Government operate, and policy, legislative, and parliamentary processes.

• Understands and leads others in the effective processes of policy proposals, including on large-scale, complex cross government programmes through:
  • relevant budgetary cycle and funding arrangements
  • Cabinet Committee processes
  • legislative and Parliamentary processes.

70% on-the-job learning

• Lead and guide agency input on sensitive issues including navigating government processes and dealing with extraordinary situations.
• Provide departmental expert advice to ministers, select committees, Cabinet committees etc.
• Participate in internal leadership groups on particular issues such as governance boards, monitoring of crown entities and other machinery of government issues.
• Ensure quality systems are followed when developing different policy products (e.g. legislation and regulatory processes, select committee and Cabinet papers, ministerial briefings).
• Integrate and implement system-wide requirements (e.g. Impact Analysis Requirements) into agency policy processes.
• Establish yourself as an expert on government systems and processes.
• Mentor others about processes and people associated with specific policy products (e.g. clerks of select committees, Parliamentary Counsel Office).
• Lead or participate in training to staff on government systems and processes.

20% learning from others

• Where relevant, use guidance from central agencies to help others with systems and processes (e.g. the budget cycle and funding arrangements - Performance and Financial Management Cycle).
• Seek feedback from your manager and peers on how you have led policy projects and navigated government processes.

10% formal learning

• Take courses aimed at leading complex policy projects (e.g. planning, resourcing, skills, people). For example:
  • Towards Strategic Leadership (ANZSOG residential programme) or equivalent.

Understand the Government's priorities and the relevant political context that shapes decision making.

70% on-the-job learning

• Apply your commissioning skills and expert subject knowledge of political context and priorities to clarify desired outcomes for new policy work, including risks and spending constraints.
• Lead and guide other colleagues in complex policy projects that require working across multiple agencies and with multiple ministers.
• Lead work that is central to the Parliamentary and election cycle (e.g. briefings for incoming ministers).
• Consider a secondment to the minister's office, so you can better see how the political context and priorities impact on the work programme.
• Share your knowledge with other colleagues about budget and legislative processes and how to make bids.
• Build and draw on well-established relationships with officials and advisors in the minister's office, across agencies and networks, to anticipate risks and the need for advice.
• Lead complex projects that require an understanding of the relationship between Māori and the Crown and consultation with Māori groups.
• Maintain strong relationships with Māori groups and individuals with an interest in your subject area.
• Share lessons and insights with other colleagues on government directions and pressures through in-house training and coaching or mentoring.

20% learning from others

• Seek critique from other colleagues who have considerable experience in interacting with ministers and Parliamentary processes.
• Build relationships with representatives of central agencies (Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission, the Treasury, and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet) to get their perspective on government priorities.

10% formal learning

• Talk to your manager about any formal learning opportunities available to you.

Understands the specialist policy subject matter relevant to the agency and sector.

70% on-the-job learning

• Lead and guide discussions on policy projects, challenges and outcomes that draw on your specialist subject matter expertise.
• Shape a culture of generously giving and receiving knowledge within and across sectors.
• Build and share a knowledge base of the domain's strategic context, including regional and international considerations.
• Mentor less experienced policy practitioners and lead in-house training in your specialist subject matter expertise.
• Monitor complex agency issues, which have broader strategic impact.
• Maintain oversight of contemporary domestic and international approaches, and contribute to the knowledge base in the domain.
• Position yourself as a leader for professional policy making in your subject matter expertise.
• Seek out projects or tasks where issues break new ground or establish precedents.
• Take up secondment opportunities or acting roles that broaden your subject matter expertise.
• Contribute to, access, and assess the following in your subject area: research; evidence; case studies; and lessons learned.

20% learning from others

• Establish and drive strong networks within your domain areas, across sectors and with interested external groups, particularly Māori and iwi organisations.
• Seek out opportunities for discussion and sharing with others in your subject area.
• Present papers at conferences, submit papers to journals, and seek critique amongst external experts.
• Engage with and seek critique from thought leaders and experts (including academics, Māori).
• Advance professional practice by testing, adapting and sharing theoretical approaches, kaupapa Māori methodologies and frameworks, models and techniques and by seeking critique and sharing lessons.
• Consider applying for an award or fellowship.
• Seek collaboration opportunities with iwi, across sectors and agencies to improve policy methods.

10% formal learning

• Attend courses, conferences and seminars that will extend your networks and knowledge in your areas of expertise.
• Take courses aimed at leading complex policy.

• Sustains trust-based relationship with ministers, other decision makers and key stakeholders. Can have respectful and sometimes 'uncomfortable' conversations without damaging those relationships.
• Highly adept at building alignment and alliances between competing interests and agendas.
• Helps shape the authorising environment by being able to influence the thinking and behaviour of others.
• Anticipates and times advice for when it can have the most influence and impact.

Responsive and Adaptive#

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Responsive to the Government of the day and works with agility in uncertain situations to improve the lives of people in New Zealand.

70% on-the-job learning

• Lead complex projects with competing demands. Identify sticking points and develop strategies for resolution.
• Find opportunities in situations where you need to adapt or change direction. Role model a positive attitude to this.
• Experiment with new ideas to solve policy problems.
• Make time to critically reflect on your experiences and what you learned.
• Use your influence to involve diverse groups and new ideas in your policy projects.
• Share lessons with your colleagues on 'wicked problems', hurdles, and how you got traction on solutions.
• Support colleagues to develop resilience and learn to live with inevitable delays and obstacles in the policy development process.

20% learning from others

• Seek feedback from networks and peers on how to approach difficult situations and competing demands.

10% formal learning

• Take one-on-one coaching in how to be resilient and change behaviour.
• Take Harvard's Project Implicit Association Test to gain greater awareness of your own biases, preferences and beliefs.

Takes initiative to develop the policy skills of themselves and others. Learns from colleagues, training opportunities, and on-the-job experience.

70% on-the-job learning

• Think about how you exchange knowledge and practice with others.
• Share your experiences and reflect on how you might have approached things differently.
• Consider developing some 'show and tell' sessions where you critically deconstruct your work.
• Lead policy training in your organisation or across the public service.
• Coach less experienced colleagues, or enter into formal mentoring agreements.
• Critically appraise work of your peers in a constructive and encouraging manner.
• Lead or participate in your agency's quality assurance panels (e.g. for Cabinet papers, select committee material and Regulatory impact assessments).
• Use the Development Pathways Tool to help mentor less experienced staff on ways to develop their range of policy skills, and use Map your team's policy skills profile with the Policy Skills Framework to identify areas in which your team needs to develop.

20% learning from others

• Seek review on your ideas from peers in other agencies.
• Participate in an expert review panel to learn from others (or allow them to learn from you).
• Find a mentor or coach to work with on specific goals.

10% formal learning

• Take a coaching or mentoring course (e.g. Feedback Made Easy by New Zealand Coaching and Mentoring Centre).
• Take a course in inspiring, influencing and motivating others.

Policy Analysis#

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Applies analytical frameworks and methods to make sense of evidence and inform policy advice.

70% on-the-job learning

• Lead complex cross-agency policy projects using a variety of analytical tools, and consider how these tools can be improved to be more relevant to these issues.
• Lead others in the development of a Regulatory impact statement.
• Share and test tools and techniques from different disciplines to apply critical thinking to the issues and problems.
• Challenge current thinking and introduce new perspectives.
• Foster discussion networks on new and emerging analytical approaches, techniques and tools.
• Keep up to date with international and domestic developments in your areas of expertise.
• Design and contribute to policy projects and analytical processes at an 'expert' level (e.g. establishing analytical practice standards).
• Coach or mentor less experienced analysts on how to choose and apply the 'best fit for purpose' analytical frameworks for policy problems.
• Recommend and discuss examples of good briefings and Cabinet papers with less experienced analysts, and disseminate best practice examples and lessons learned.
• Design, establish and lead quality assurance processes (e.g. regulatory impact analysis panels and Cabinet paper committees).
• Position yourself as a leader for professional policy making.

20% learning from others

• Discuss analytical frameworks with peers across agencies. Talk about improvements to both the analytical frameworks and methods, and to the application of them.
• Discuss with peers the underlying assumptions of a policy problem you are working on, how you have identified the risks, benefits and feasibility of different options, and the impact of the problem on the wider system.
• Build relationships with domestic and international experts in methods and tools from different disciplines that can be used in policy analysis.

10% formal learning

• Consider advanced courses on analysis in the policy development process.
• Consider taking Victoria University of Wellington's more advanced short courses including policy courses and degrees.

Draws on a range of evidence and insights to support analysis that informs each stage of the policy process. Aware of the reliability of the evidence.

70% on-the-job learning

• Engage with decision makers to illustrate how the research, information and data generated by you and your colleagues can assist in achieving policy goals.
• Consider how regular data flows can provide alerts about emerging patterns and potential issues.
• Understand predictive analytic models and methods for improving insights, and their limitations.
• Use multiple sources of data to get a better picture of situations and issues.
• Have a rich understanding of the characteristics of the people affected by your subject area and advise others on useful ways to demonstrate potential impacts of different decisions.
• Regularly scan relevant research and evaluation findings and interpret them for policy insights.
• Build into your projects opportunities to revisit policy assumptions based on the evidence base.
• Identify with specialists which policy interventions need evaluation, and institute an appropriate methodology.
• Identify data and other evidence gaps for your agency, and lead work on future data needs and building the policy evidence base.
• Share and present your evaluation findings from specific projects and discuss lessons learned.
• Mentor and coach others in how to develop strong evidence-informed policy.

20% learning from others

• Co-design data requirements with specialists and incorporate them in policy projects for analysis.
• Engage with academics to foster research interest in long running policy issues to generate research insights.
• Engage with non-specialists and other agencies to illustrate how the research, information and data you hold will help them achieve their goals.
• Develop a collaborative relationship between policy makers, analysts and data specialists.
• Incorporate data specialists in project teams (either as direct or virtual team members).
• Cultivate a working relationship with any chief science advisors in your organisation to support your policy development and practice.

10% formal learning

• Take an online course on how to work with data strategically (e.g. Strategic Data Skills from the Open Data Institute).
• Consider more advanced courses on statistical analysis and econometrics.

Analyses possible future states, and supports the development of strategic objectives and policy proposals that inform the direction of policy advice.

70% on-the-job learning

• Lead at an agency or sector level a project that contributes to vision setting, strategic direction, and longer-term outcomes.
• Design the foresight component of policy projects. Select the optimal combination of tools for each part of the project (scanning, uncovering assumptions, exploration of possible future states, exploration of responses, identifying preferences). Design futures-informed policy responses.
• Coach and mentor others in systems thinking and futures thinking.
• Lead scanning activities that identify future trends and their strategic implications, and discuss within your agency and sector to the implications for policy direction.
• Identify your team's capability for strategic and futures thinking - the skill sets, data sets, organisational processes, and culture needed to support high quality policy advice.
• Facilitate workshops to test new ideas and approaches for systems thinking and futures thinking.

20% learning from others

• Stay updated on the new tools and techniques others are using to support their strategic and futures thinking.
• Join the Association of Professional Futurists.
• Join the Strategic Futures Group - Interagency Community of Practice on Futures Thinking and contribute to leadership of the system.
• Test strategic and futures thinking with other experienced colleagues, within and across agencies.
• Read articles on emerging futures practice from one or more of the academic futures journals, such as Journal of Futures Studies.

10% formal learning

• Attend courses that help you understand how futures thinking can support you in designing better operating policies and guide effective change from a strategic perspective.
• Take a futures thinking course.

Delivers policy advice that is robust, free and frank, and compelling. Can use appropriate levers of influence to successfully effect change.

70% on-the-job learning

• Lead the development and delivery of free and frank advice to decision-makers on complex cross-agency projects that meets all the Policy Quality Framework criteria.
• Anticipate the need for advice.
• Identify who needs to be influenced and how best to do this so that the right decisions are made and implemented.
• Lead discussions in which you need to be persuasive with the minister, select committees, Cabinet committees, across agencies and with stakeholders.
• Lead and guide discussions on how to improve the way analysis is delivered to ministers.
• Develop case studies for peer learning on what works, and to practice how advice is presented and understood.
• Present your work in your capacity as a compelling and influential subject matter expert.
• Share with others your knowledge on how to advise and influence.

20% learning from others

• Shadow senior managers in the development of relationships with key decision makers.
• Work with colleagues in other agencies to identify common objectives, including how policy issues in one area can influence and affect the achievement of objectives in another.
• Join peer networks within your agency or across the public service, where you can share ideas and experiences of presenting advice and influencing decision makers.

10% formal learning

• Consider taking a leadership course (e.g. Leadership by Communicate).

Develops and applies fit-for-purpose measures and indicators to monitor policy outcomes. Builds results of evaluation into policy making.

70% on-the-job learning

• Attend events run by the Chief Science Advisors forum on policy evaluation.
• Regularly scan relevant research and evaluation findings and interpret them for policy insights.
• Work with specialists on policy interventions needing evaluation, and institute an appropriate methodology.
• Share and present your evaluation findings from specific projects and discuss lessons learned with junior colleagues.
• Read the Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association and Superu Evaluation Standards for Aotearoa New Zealand ANZEA (the full evaluation standards and a summary version of the standards are available).
• Read the United Kingdom's Treasury's Magenta Book: Central government guidance on evaluation.

20% learning from others

• Work with an evaluation specialist to plan, design, oversee the evaluation of a policy project.
• Lead a policy project with a more senior colleague and use methods and approaches to evaluation such as those set out by BetterEvaluation (see What is evaluation?).

10% formal training

• Attend a course on evaluation in public policy such as University of Auckland's Programme Evaluation: Supporting evidence-informed practice.
• Attend a course run by the Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association.

Delivers quality advice on time and within budget using the right mix of resources and project management methods

70% on-the-job learning

• Initiate and lead complex policy projects, ensuring that the rights skills are available and applied at the right time to produce desired deliverables within specified timelines.
• Look at new project management approaches and techniques that can be adapted to policy environments, and which accommodate iterative methodologies.
• Advise others on the timeframes and stages required to properly engage with Māori.
• Share people and resources to enable joint ownership and delivery of a project.
• Establish and manage governance arrangements and the flows of information in all directions.
• For complex projects, develop and maintain risk registers that identify the likely consequences of risks, strategies for mitigating them, and their likely effectiveness.
• Design stakeholder management plans that identify key stakeholders, their level of interest and influence, and how they will participate in projects.
• Work with managers to scope, develop, prioritise and adjust the work programme as necessary.
• Coach or mentor less experienced analysts in project planning and management.
• Present to colleagues on lessons learned from managing big or complex policy projects.

20% learning from others

• Seek feedback from colleagues in your own and other agencies in your sector on draft project plans, risk registers and stakeholder plans.

10% formal learning

• Consider taking an advanced project management course (e.g. Agile Policy Management, PRINCE 2).
• Consider taking a course that focuses on personal and professional effectiveness (e.g. Managing Yourself for Success by Auckland University).

Uses early, inclusive and genuine engagement during policy making that builds sustainable relationships.

70% on-the-job learning

• Work collaboratively with stakeholders across your agency, across government and externally.
• Lead and guide others in developing engagement strategies and consultation and other engagement documents.
• Draw on your experience in the Māori Crown Relations Engagement Framework and Guidelines, when advising other colleagues.
• Apply guidance on collaboration and engagement with local government - see Guide for central government engagement with local government.
• Lead a policy team to apply the Community Engagement Design Tool in the Policy Methods Toolbox when designing a community engagement approach on a policy project you're working on.
• Apply expert knowledge of issues when communicating with knowledge leaders and stakeholders.
• Maintain the confidence of policy leaders by updating them on stakeholder issues management, recommendations and next steps.
• Predict and manage complex relationships. Maintain engagement and involvement of key influencers in key policy projects you are leading.
• Use your existing stakeholder networks to find new partnerships - who do your stakeholders work with that you don't?
• Engage with new partners, identifying to them the benefits of working with you.
• Use participatory approaches to design, develop, test and implement policy projects that involve affected parties, users and other members of the public directly.
• Use a range of research methods to obtain insights about people affected by policy issues and initiatives (questionnaires, in-depth interviews, workshops, ethnographic observation).
• Regularly test, revalidate, and identify new citizen needs throughout the development and delivery of advice.
• Ensure that appropriate tikanga for engagements is followed, and identify when additional cultural support is required.
• Arrange a short secondment to a key stakeholder agency.
• Make sure your meetings are accessible to all people.

20% learning from others

• Work with specialists in user experience to develop engagement processes that are human-centred.
• Discuss with others their experience with approaches to engagement with Māori. What worked well, what could have been done better, and what were the outcomes?
• Contact the Te Arawhiti - The Office for Māori Crown Relations to discuss your proposed approach to engagement.
• Contact other agencies that can provide assistance with engagement with specific groups (e.g. the Ministry of Disabled People on engagement with disabled people).

10% formal learning

• Pursue advanced facilitation, building coalitions, conflict management and resolution training.
• Take a course on building collaborative networks, inclusive community engagement design, or approaches to engaging to develop collectively agreed solutions (e.g. Engagement Evaluation and Engaging with Influence by International Association for Public Participation).
• Take a Māori Crown Relations engagement course (e.g. Masterclass Engagement Training by Te Arawhiti).
• Take a course in negotiating and influencing skills.
• Take a relationship management course (e.g. Relationship management by Communicate).

Focuses policy advice on 'end to end' aspects of implementation, including the use of digital technologies.

70% on-the-job learning

• Confidently apply new formal iterative methodologies and techniques that can contribute to design options.
• Regularly use iterative project management methodologies to test a number of different approaches.
• Design tests and experiments to evaluate prototypes through large-scale randomised tests or randomised control trials.
• Assess which research methods (e.g. in-depth interviews, questionnaires, workshops, ethnographic observation) are best used to gain insights about users and how they are likely to respond to different policy options.
• Identify ways that new user needs can be tested and re-validated throughout development and delivery.
• Develop and maintain a register of project risks and how to mitigate them.
• Use participatory approaches to design, develop, test and implement projects that involve users directly.
• Coach less experienced staff in how to develop prototypes that can be used with users to test feasibility and explore the ability to scale up.
• Coach or mentor less experienced staff on how to ensure policy proposals are workable.
• Share with colleagues your knowledge of applying different policy instruments (e.g. regulation, financial incentives, behavioural nudges) to policy problems, and lessons learned.
• Share your insights on design for implementation at in-house policy training and seminars.
• Understand the Digital product lifecycle and how to manage risk when replacing legacy systems (see Strategy and planning and Legacy system guidance).
• Understand how Cloud capabilities can/should be used to support the work of government (see Cloud services and Application programming interfaces).
• Consider the Digital Service Design Standardand how it applies to your work.
• Understand which data and digital standards may apply to your work (see Government Digital Standards Catalogue).

20% learning from others

• Engage with academics, service providers and key users to iteratively co-design policy processes.
• Engage with a community of practice that applies new methods and approaches to testing policy frameworks.
• Work with other experts to adapt, design and lead training on how such approaches can be used in cross-sector and in-house policy projects.
• Engage with specialists in behavioural science to use psychological and sociological techniques to deliver policy outcomes (e.g. 'nudge' interventions).

10% formal learning

• Attend courses or seminars on new 'design thinking' methods including Agile and Lean project approaches.
• Attend courses on influencing human behaviour as part of policy development.
• Attend courses that aim to help understanding complexity, design better operating policies, and guide effective change from a systems thinking perspective (e.g. Systems Thinking by Victoria University of Wellington).

Works innovatively and collaboratively to identify ways to 'do things better' and 'do better things' in policy practice

70% on-the-job learning

• Challenge the status quo and don't accept the way things have always been done.
• Identify existing boundaries and find ways to overcome or work around them.
• Provide opportunities with colleagues to do new things and support them to overcome the fear of failure.
• Borrow from different approaches that encourage iterative and continuous improvement.
• Use large-scale methods such as crowd sourcing and text mining to gain insights.
• Use tools such as vignettes and personas to understand how different people think about a situation.
• Use challenges and awards to encourage people to think differently.
• Explore the Australian Government's Agile Policy Playbook and consider whether you can use Agile policy methods in your work.
• Forge alliances among both internal and external partners that can support change. Think about working with unusual partners who can assist in identifying different approaches.
• Reflect on what lessons you have learned and use that to question your assumptions and practices.
• Be open to 'unlearning' what you have previously learned, if ways of thinking are no longer relevant.
• Share new ideas, innovations, and lessons with your colleagues.
• Mentor and coach less experienced colleagues in thinking outside the box.

20% learning from others

• Facilitate creative workshops to explore new ideas and approaches.
• Ask people to peer review your approaches and identify alternative options based on their practice.
• Analyse the approaches of people and organisations from different sectors.
• Build international networks in your field, so you can exchange ideas.

10% formal learning

• Attend courses that build your understanding of how service design can encourage innovations.

Delivers clear, compelling, and fit-for-purpose messages, using the most effective communication vehicle for the audience.

70% on-the-job learning

• Present to external agencies and stakeholders on your area of expertise in a compelling way.
• Lead the agency's contributions to deliver communication in different settings and for different products, such as for select and Cabinet committees, public consultations or collaboration, and expert groups.
• Consider how using a 'storytelling' approach helps build support and engage people.
• Consider designing workshops for your group on how to draft briefings, ministerials, and official information responses.
• Use interactive tools and methods to help audiences navigate the 'story' and focus on relevant parts. Enable audiences and users to contribute or reflect their own content or stories.
• Tell stories of actual users to enhance the message with a 'real voice'.
• Think about using a range of methods to communicate, such as blogs and social media.
• Act as a mentor or coach to colleagues, using lessons from your experience to help them.
• Lead and guide discussions on how to improve the quality of written and verbal interactions using the learning that happens with the team, including how to deal with different and extraordinary situations.
• Share best practice in verbal and written communication with different audiences, including select committees, ministers, stakeholders and public engagement communication tools.

20% learning from others

• Use ministerial, select committee and Parliamentary counsel staff to help shape and customise communications.
• Work with private secretaries and ministerial advisors to create feedback loops and adapt to ministerial preferences.
• Seek feedback from peers or more experienced colleagues on your communication and presentation style.

10% formal learning

• Complete a Digital Accessibility micro-credential (i.e. Fundamentals of the government's digital design and web standards).
• Take a course on effective stakeholder engagement (e.g. Engaging Effectively with Your Stakeholders by Wellington Uni Professional).
• Take a presentation skills course. For example:
  • Presentation Skills by Write Limited
  • Confident and Creative Presentation Skills by Wellington Uni Professional.
• Take an effective writing course.
• Take facilitation training.