Strategic policy tips & tricks

All boards have their own preferences and working methods when it comes to working with the strategic policy troughout the year.

It is important that boards reflect on what worked for them and what other boards also could do to improve the way they handle policy.

Below you can find a list of tips & tricks from old boards which are useful for the current board:

2019-2020: Groovy Green

1. Make the policy visual in the boardroom.
This is a great way to be constantly reminded of what you want to achieve during your board year. It motivates and make sure you never lose the “why” out of sight. We dedicated an entire wall to our policy visualizing both the structure and progress. This helped in keeping up with our planning, but also showed what we already had achieved because we also visualized what we had done for certain policy points. Then you see your progress, which motivates you even more.

2. Do a policy bv every 6 weeks.
This meeting will be entirely dedicated to the policy. During this meeting you go over all policy points together. You update each other on the progress and immediately reflect on whether achieving your goals helped in reaching your objectives. During these meetings you can also critically look at whether there need to be made changes to the policy you are working on. Doing these meetings regularly will make sure everybody is up-to-date and involved in your entire policy and facilitates a moment to reflect on and adjust the strategic policy.

3. Set-up working groups to work on a policy points.
Collaborating motivates, improves the mutual responsibility and makes sure you have different opinions on the same matter.

4. Make sure you have a place where you can keep track of your progress.
In our case we used our “policy wall”, but it is important to have one central place or document all board members can see the progress you have been making.

5. Make a scheme of all “goal deadlines”.
With this scheme people can put deadlines in their agenda or to-do lists. This makes sure people don’t forget goals, but also helps in planning your goals throughout the year.

6. Link the policy points to your personal goals
Working on aspects of the policy can sometimes have quite some overlap with your personal goals. Developing yourself at the same time as working on your policy is ofcourse a win-win situation and can work extra motivating.

7. Every point has a sort of end-responsible
Shared responsibility is a good thing. But it might be a good idea to assign head responsibles for each strategic objective. This prevents confusion about who is working on what part of the policy and who is for example presenting what topic at a GMM.

8. Reflect on the feedback given by the GMM within a week of the GMM.
During GMM’s you get useful feedback on what you have been working on. The days after the GMM might be a moment to relax a bit more, but make sure you process this feedback shortly after the GMM. Otherwise you will forget it.

9. Send documents related to policy updates at a GMM along with the invitation.
This might lead to members already reading it, which leads to getting better feedback during the GMM.

10. Make sure the goal of what you are presenting about your policy is clear to the GMM
You should know what you want to get out of presenting your progress on a policy point to the GMM. Do you want to only inform? Do you have some specific questions? Do you want the GMM to think along. Use interactive elements in your presentation for this.

11. Use the same lay-out for your slides during GMM when talking about policy.
This will be recognizable for members and makes sure you do not have to explain the structure of how you present it again.

12. Use the implement – reflect – adjust cycle in your goals
When reading the goals you might notice a pattern of: changing something – reflecting on the changes – adjust based on reflection. Make sure to follow this pattern when writing new goals.