The Development of XFN — Part 3: Don’t play in my sandbox

When we are young, we are told to play nice with others, ironically this also applies to us as adults and professionals. When starting a new project, no matter the function, it is essential to first look at what exists before you start trying to solve problems or create something new.

Environmental Scan

In my case, I decided to start with an environmental scan. I researched existing Programs related to the development of public servants in policy functions. I discovered that many existed, but most were for the recruitment/development of policy practitioners from outside the Government of Canada. For example:

• Advanced Policy Analyst Program
• Post-Secondary Recruitment Program
• Recruitment of Policy Leaders Program
• Policy Analysts Recruitment and Development Program (Natural Resources Canada)
• Policy Officer Recruitment Program (National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces)
• Research Associate Program (National Research Council)
• Treasury Board Secretariat Post-Secondary Recruitment Program
• Finance Canada University Recruitment
• Policy Analyst Developmental Program (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada)

I found these Programs to have a number of common key features including:

• Recruitment of university students once a year (need a certain GPA and at the undergrad, M.A or PH.D level)
• Guaranteed level advancement (pending success in the program)
• Pre-identified work opportunities
• Participation for a specified amount of time
• Participants are seen as leaders and exceptional communicators

In addition to external recruitment programs there were a number of programs/efforts that supported the development/mobility of existing public servants. Including:

• Canada’s Free Agents
• GC Entrepreneurs (supports the Deputy Ministers Task Force on Public Sector Innovation)
• Regulatory Professional Development Program (Community of Federal Regulators)
• Communications Community Office Dynamo Free Agents
• Micro-assignments/missions (Government of Canada GCConnex/GCCollab platform)
• Innovative Staffing and Resource Management Strategy (led by Canada’s Impact and Innovation Unit)
• Interchange

The key common features of these programs were: freedom of choice and the ability to work at multiple departments/organizations.

Stakeholders

While the programs identified above were some of the key stakeholders for the development of XFN, who elses sandbox was I playing in? To answer this question I thought about the implications of the work I was doing. In addition to employees and managers, who else does solving a mobility problem for policy practitioners impact?

In the Government of Canada the answer was the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer (controls classification), the Public Service Commission (controls staffing), and the Unions (multiple, unique to classification).

Consultations

While I am very tempted to dive into the story of consulting with the stakeholders for XFN, I am going to wait and share something else about consultations. It is SO important to plan them as part of your development process. It should also be noted that consultations are not something you should plan on doing just once. In summary, bring people on your journey with you, don’t leave them behind and then expect them to automatically be supportive.

On that note, I will ask that you stay on this journey with me and stay tuned for my next post on what I did now that I had:

1. An understanding of the problem I was trying to solve
2. A solid foundation (competencies)
3. Identified stakeholders, a.k.a knew whose sandbox I was playing in

For those who have been following these posts, thanks for reading! :)