The Development of XFN — Part 2: Sometimes you have to take a step back before you can take a step forward
It is said that the road of development/implementation for policies and programs is never linear. As an implementer, I usually make a clear project plan with expectations/timelines, detailed activities and then hit the ground running. But what happens when someone tells you to hit the breaks?
STOP
Well, this is exactly what happened to me about a month into the XFN project (again, I didn’t know it would be XFN at the time). Now, you may be wondering what happened? If I had great plan, a mandate and determination, why couldn’t I just do it? Well friends, the truth is no matter how great a plan is, it is meaningless if you aren’t starting from a solid place.
For me, that solid place was competencies. But not just any set of competencies, competencies that would be applicable for policy practitioners across the policy life cycle. We needed to know: was there a magic combination of skills that makes for great workers in various roles/functions across government? Are there skills that are truly common and transferable between diverse roles?
You might be saying, who cares? Practitioners need mobility, give it to them! Well, in response I ask you this. How do you know a policy practitioner when you see one? How do you evaluate them? How do you identify areas for them to strengthen? How do you support them in learning/growth?
START
With the collaboration of a colleague from the Policy Community Partnership Office and hundreds of employees/managers from across the Government of Canada representing over 50 organizations and through 6 months of engagement sessions, we discovered an answer. A bit to our surprise, there was indeed a common set of skills for policy practitioners. While this was great, it wasn't the whole story. Though the skills are common, the level of importance of each skill in each function varied.
Now, if you can bear with me, I want to tell you more these functions and skills I keep going on about.
For key functions across the policy lice cycle we identified 9:
- Policy Research
- Policy/Program Development
- Strategic Policy/Policy Coordination
- Policy Consultation and Engagement
- Program/Operations Management
- Project Management
- Corporate Policy
- Communications
- Results and Evaluation
Definitions available here: https://policomm-commpoli.gccollab.ca/en/xfn.html#member2__Container321
For competencies applicable to all functions just listed we identified 8:
- Analytical
- Data literate
- Collaborative
- Storyteller
- User-centric
- Results-oriented
- Creative
- Adaptable
Definitions available here: https://policomm-commpoli.gccollab.ca/en/xfn.html#member2__Container323
Now, as mentioned, these competencies did not have equal level of importance for all functions, but the ones that were most often emphasized were: analytical, collaborative and adaptable. What was interesting here, was that two of these skills are considered “soft skills”, which are generally not emphasized during hiring/recruitment in the Government of Canada (but, yet desired and essential).
NEXT
So now that I was 6 months into the project, with a solid foundation, what happened next? Didn’t I have a mobility problem to solve? Stay tuned to find out!
