Delivering Policy Under Pressure

Government policy-making frequently occurs under significant time pressures and high expectations for outcomes from stakeholders and the broader community. Policy professionals must build their ability to operate in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments while still meeting expectations around rigour and good governance.

In order to respond to this challenge, policy and project professionals working in government should build the toolkit required to deliver policy quickly and under high pressure. This requires skills in delivering both technical and cultural change as part of policy-making practice. Policy-makers must reflect on the changing needs of government, learn from other fields about how pressure impacts their work, and develop the skills and experience that they must acquire to meet these challenges.

This half-day masterclass will explore the impact of time pressure on the traditional policy cycle drawing on insights from the fields of public sector management, policy theory and crisis management. The masterclass will encourage practitioners to reflect on their own professional context and actively plan for how they can contribute to better policy under pressure.