This page collects policy-related publications and resources from past events, including conversation trackers, slide packs, videos, and publications. These events include those hosted by the Policy Project and a range of other organisations. They are organised by year, dating back to 2013 during the formation of the Policy Project.
2021
Lifting the quality of policy advice on issues involving law reform (17 September 2021)
Eliza Prestidge-Oldfield from Policy Project in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet delivered this webinar in 2021.
August 2021 Policy Forum (3 August 2021)
At the Policy Project's forum on policy and law, the following presentations were made:
- Legislation Design and Advisory Committee: What you need to know (Matthew Green from the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee)
- Regulatory Stewardship: legislative tools for the adaptation of regulatory systems (Denny Kudrna from the Regulatory Stewardship Team at the Treasury)
2019
Behavioural Insights Community of Practice: Justice Sector Behavioural Science Service Update (6 November 2019)
Erica Voss, Establishment Manager and Brendan Rose, Advisor from the Ministry of Justice spoke about behavioural science in the justice sector.
Future of Public Policy and Programmes: Public Service Commission Graduate Welcome Event – Brook Barrington speech (18 October 2019)
Brook Barrington spoke at the Public Service Commission’s Graduate Welcome Event about the future of public policy and programmes.
Creating the conditions for innovation – Brenton Caffin (24 October 2019)
This roundtable provided an opportunity for policy leaders to draw on Brenton Caffin’s work at Nesta, in partnering with governments around the world to help build their innovation capacity.
Public participation in policy making – Discovery workshops (9–10 July 2019)
The Policy Project and the Auckland Co-design Lab co-organised two discovery workshops on 9 and 10 July 2019, to map the current state of practice within agencies, including barriers, constraints and enablers to public participation in policy making.
Behavioural Insights Community of Practice: The establishment of behavioural insights units in three Australian governments (16 April 2019)
Public policy is fundamentally about managing or resolving collective problems. There is widespread interest in devising better processes and instruments for problem-solving. Can we develop evidence-informed approaches that are rigorous while also less technocratic and elitist?
Innovation Seminar – Brenton Caffin (11 Feb 2019)
What is your experience with innovation? What questions or need do you have? Download Brenton Caffin’s presentation to read how can governments better enable innovation to fuel growth and societal wellbeing.
2018
Behavioural Insights Community of Practice – Embedding the use of Behavioural Insights (3 December 2018)
Behavioural insights has the potential to help us understand how people and organisations actually behave. We can use this evidence to implement more effective policies and to identify the best levers to use to effect change.
Policy by Design Workshop (19 November 2018)
The purpose of the workshop was to explore different approaches to enabling policy practitioners to produce policy advice that is better informed by various forms of evidence – through the lenses of practice-based evidence and evidence-based practice.
Policy by Design Seminar (19 November 2018)
This conversation tracker was developed from the seminar held by the Auckland Co-design Lab. The seminar explored the current state and opportunities for co-design of policy that improves its efficacy and outcomes for New Zealanders.
Maximising Collaboration Between Civil Servants and Academics – Roundtable with Professor Paul Cairney (15 Oct 2018)
The conversation tracker is about how Paul Cairney discussed ways to encourage greater use of research evidence in policy through greater collaboration between policymakers and academics / scientists.
Free and Frank in the Context of Open Government – Why It Matters (28 September 2018)
Andrew Kibblewhite, Chief Executive of DPMC and Head of the Policy Profession spoke at the IPANZ seminar on why free and frank advice matters in the context of open government.
Behavioural Insights Community of Practice – EAST Framework (29 Aug 2018)
These four simple principles are the basis for a simple, memorable framework to increase targeted behaviours and improve the success of social initiatives. The framework was developed by the UK Behavioural Insights Team.
EngageTech Forum: New Zealand (28 August 2018)
The EngageTech Forum was an interactive event designed to help government staff understand the spectrum of technologies available for community consultation and stakeholder engagement both online and offline. The forum explored the different ways government can use technology to understand, engage and work with communities and stakeholders. It provided an opportunity for public servants to connect with peers, technology experts and vendors.
Behavioural Insights Community of Practice Inaugural Event (19 April 2018)
Ministry for the Environment staff have initiated the Behavioural Insights Community of Practice, to build a public service network of people who can share their experiences and identify opportunities for using behavioural insights.
Individual presentations
- Reducing Barriers to Electric Vehicle (EV) Uptake – Ed Hearnshaw and Mahesh Girvan (Ministry for the Environment)
- Why Small Details Matter – Lee McCauley (Behavioural Insights Ltd)
Protecting the interests of future generations, and foresight (10 Apr 2018)
On 10 April 2018, the Policy Project co-hosted a round-table with the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University on protecting the interests of future generations, and foresight. The lead speaker was Marie Brousseau-Navarro, the Director of Policy, Legislation and Innovation at the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner in Wales. Marie addressed a round table of public servants about the steps that Wales has taken toward sustainability and protecting the interests of future generations.
- Inland Revenue's Foresighting Approach – Grant Fletcher
- Reflections on Secondary Futures – Stephanie Pride
Policy Community Conference: Conference-in-a-Box 2018
Nikita Agarwal from Apolitical gave a presentation to the Canadian Policy Community on the power of storytelling to drive engagement for your research.
2017
Behavioural Insights and the rise of the empirical governments conversation tracker (5 December 2017)
The Policy Project is working on building public service demand and capability for advice that in informed by evidence and insights. On 5 December 2017 Andrew Kibblewhite, Head of the Policy Profession, hosted an executive round table with Dr David Halpern on the use of behavioural insights in public policy.
Futures Tools Workshop (26 October 2017)
The purpose of the workshop was to understand futures thinking and tools, as well as impart tips for putting these into practice in a policy setting.
Capability-building through training – collective action (4 October 2017)
Agencies worked in groups to identify which skills in the Policy Skills Framework were both most important to improve, and most amenable to formal training.
Making Value Manageable (8 August 2017)
Scott Douglas, Assistant Professor of Public Management at Utrecht University School of Governance, shared his research findings and insights on making value (including public sector contributions to society) manageable.
Policy people capability workshop (2 August 2017)
The workshop focused on policy people capability, including a discussion on survey findings and analysis of the policy workforce, pathways to improve capability, and collective formal training initiatives.
Making Sense of Evidence: A Good Practice Guide (July 2017)
A round table discussion on the use of evidence in public policy was co-hosted by Superu and the School of Government at Victoria University. Superu has since worked with other agencies to develop Making sense of evidence: a guide to using evidence in policy. The purpose of this July 2017 roundtable was to provide feedback on the draft guide, and to discuss barriers and enablers for increasing the use of evidence in policy.
Launch of Kapasa – the Pacific Policy Analysis Tool (29 Jun 2017)
Andrew Kibblewhite joined the Minister for Pacific Peoples, Alfred Ngaro and the Deputy Chief Executive Ministry for Pacific Peoples (MPP), Catherine Neill in launching MPP’s KAPASA – the Pacific Policy Analysis Tool. Using this tool can ensure we formulate and implement policy with an awareness of diverse and unique characteristics of Pacific peoples, which are a source of strength to New Zealand.
Using open data for policy design (29 June 2017)
Stats NZ hosted the workshop on how to use open data for policy design. It was facilitated by Ellen Broad (Associate –Policy, Open Data Institute), and supported by the Department of Internal Affairs, who administer the open data platform (data.govt.nz), and the Policy Project.
Citizen Centred Policy (26 June 2017)
The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) hosted a workshop on citizen-centred policy, which was facilitated by MSD staff. Parts of it were delivered by staff from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
Use of evidence in public policy (21 June 2017)
Superu and the Victoria University School of Government hosted a roundtable for senior officials and experts with Dr Sarah Morton and Andrew Kibblewhite, Head of the Policy Profession. The aim of the roundtable was to share knowledge and experience of how to achieve positive outcomes from the uptake and application of evidence gained from research and evaluation.
Agency Policy Capability Leads (17 May 2017)
In the second of the Policy Project workshops with policy capability leads (people nominated by their agency to lead work to improve policy quality and capability), we discussed Policy Project work in progress, had a report back from the Tier 2 Policy leaders workshop on policy stewardship and heard about promising practices in agencies that others could learn from or ‘steal with pride’.
Understanding public value (5 May 2017)
The Head of the Policy Profession hosted a roundtable for senior policy leaders with Professor Mark Moore from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. The session was designed to learn about the concept of ‘public value’ and how policy leaders could use Moore’s ‘strategic triangle’ as an analytical framework for deciding how best to create value for New Zealand.
Policy Stewardship – Tier 2 Policy Leaders Workshop (26 April 2017)
The Head of the Policy Profession wants chief executives and their departments to understand and meet their policy stewardship responsibilities. Policy leaders (Tier 2s and strategic advisors) came together to discuss what success in policy stewardship would look like. How does policy stewardship relate to other forms of stewardship? What would we be doing if we were doing it well? This report summarises the session and suggestions for ensuring better policy stewardship.
In Pursuit of Better Stewardship (23 March 2017)
At a symposium on Improving Intergenerational Governance, Andrew Kibblewhite talked about his stewardship roles including as Head of the Policy Profession.
Co-production in government: why, when and how? (21 March 2017)
The Policy Project hosted a roundtable with Professor Tony Bovaird and Dr Elke Loeffler, visiting experts on co-production in government. The session explored what is meant by ‘co-production’ and how a co-production approach might be applied to various aspects of government activity – policy, regulation, service delivery – to build public value.
Building policy capability (21 February 2017)
The Policy Project hosted a workshop with policy capability leads (people nominated by their agency to lead work to improve policy quality and capability). We discussed how agencies are using the Policy Project policy improvement frameworks, identified lingering ‘pain points’ and highlighted promising practices in agencies that others could ‘steal with pride’.
2016
People-centred policy workshop (6 December 2016)
Speaking at the Government Economics Network conference alongside Government Statistician Liz Macpherson, Andrew Kibblewhite, Head of the Policy Profession, said that policy practitioners needed to understand the value and application of data and methods like behavioural insights and design thinking so that New Zealand could be “world-leading in the evidence and advice that supports government decision making”. See also Andrew Kibblewhite’s address to the GEN 2016 Annual Conference.
Design thinking in government: Leaders roundtable with Professor Jeanne Liedtka (23 September 2016)
Andrew Kibblewhite, Head of the Policy Profession, hosted a round table for senior government leaders and academics from Victoria University with Professor Jeanne Liedtka from the Darden Business School, USA. The session was to learn about the potential benefits of design thinking for government and what leaders can do to enable and support design thinking and innovation capability, in their organisations and across government. Jeanne described design thinking as “a systematic approach to problem solving”.
Prime Minister launches Policy Project Frameworks (23 August 2016)
The Prime Minister and the Head of the Policy Profession officially launched the Policy Project’s three policy improvement frameworks. The Prime Minister said: “I’m impressed with the Policy Project frameworks being launched today. They provide a great infrastructure for government departments to improve the business of providing advice”. Andrew Kibblewhite, Head of the Policy Profession delivered a speech in which he said the three frameworks – on policy capability, policy skills, and policy advice – would help New Zealand’s policy function to be “world leading”. He called on policy leaders to adopt and use the frameworks in their departments.
Mastering the art of free and frank advice (August 2016)
In two speeches this week Andrew Kibblewhite, Head of the Policy Profession continued his theme of the ‘F-words’ that characterise good policy advice – free, frank, fearless, full and future-focused.
Building the policy ecosystem – Andrew Kibblewhite speech to IPANZ and VUW School of Government (23 February 2016)
In this speech, hosted by IPANZ at Victoria University of Wellington’s new Auckland facility, Andrew Kibblewhite shared his views on what makes for quality policy advice.
2015
UK Institute for Government: Insights on the Policy Project (15 Dec 2015)
Nehal Davison, senior researcher from the United Kingdom’s Institute for Government, spent five weeks with the Policy Project team in late 2015. She produced a case study on the Policy Project to analyse its origins, progress and challenges against the Institute’s framework for reviewing state sector reform initiatives. Nehal also gave presentations on the work of the Institute with particular reference to its work supporting ministerial effectiveness and public service reform. See Nehal's presentation, sponsored by the British High Commission and the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies.
Jeanne Liedtka seminar: Designing for social good (24 September 2015)
In this seminar, Jeanne Liedtka from the Darden Graduate School of Business discussed the application of design thinking to policy, with a particular focus on the social sector. Jeanne reached beyond the buzzwords to show how design thinking can be a systematic approach to problem solving, which starts with customers or citizens and the ability to create a better future for them.
Free, frank and other f-words – Andrew Kibblewhite speech to IPANZ (12 August 2015)
At an IPANZ seminar on free and frank policy advice, Andrew Kibblewhite discussed the infrastructure for providing free and frank policy advice.
Tier 2 Policy Leaders Network: Creating a Policy Heat Map (18 July 2015)
The Tier 2 Policy Leaders Network were joined by the Head of the Policy Profession at a special session to identify longer term strategic policy questions. The challenge: what are the 5-10 top policy questions for the next 10 years? How might we collectively and proactively respond to them?
Policy Skills Framework: Co-design workshop (24 June 2015)
In this workshop we took the first steps towards co-creating a policy specific skills framework by describing the knowledge and skills of the modern policy professional. The workshop brought together two Policy Project cross-agency working groups; the policy quality working group (focussed on the future policy toolkit) and the people capability insights group (focussed on foundation policy skills, knowledge and training). The aim of the workshop was to crash though the 'chicken and egg' challenge – what comes first, the toolbox (the what) or the skills and training (the who and the how)?
Great Policy: Responsive today, shaping tomorrow − Andrew Kibblewhite speech to IPANZ (26 May 2015)
Andrew Kibblewhite presented this IPANZ speech in his capacity as Head of the Policy Profession. Andrew discussed the state of the policy profession, what future policy success will look like and what the policy community needs to do to get there.
Policy Managers Forum (15 April 2015)
The Policy managers forum included 39 policy managers from 20 agencies. Policy managers tested and iterated some key deliverables for the Policy Project including a common policy quality framework, and work to develop a high-performing policy workforce. Andrew Kibblewhite (Head of the Policy Profession) and the Tier 2 Policy Leaders Network joined the policy managers for an open discussion at the end of the session.
International Year of Evaluation 2015 Launch – Andrew Kibblewhite speech (18 March 2015)
Andrew Kibblewhite attended the official launch of the International Year of Evaluation (EvalYear 2015), a global initiative to promote evaluation and evidence-based policy making. The event was opened by the Hon Bill English, followed by speeches and discussion with Minister English, Dr Robin Peace (Associate Professor Evaluation, Massey University), Chris Whelan (Executive Director, University NZ) and Andrew as Head of the Policy Profession. Key themes included the importance of evaluation in evidence-based policy and the need for evaluation to be relevant, timely and embedded in policy process – rather than a search for perfection disconnected from decision making.
Intentionally Building our Policy People Capability across the system: people capability workshop (18 March 2015)
The People capability workshop brought together a diverse range of perspectives (HR/OD/Policy) from across the public service to shape the Policy Project's people capability work stream. Participants identified opportunities and challenges with developing a high performing policy workforce and prototyped possible frameworks to identify key components for success.
Seminar series: Dave Snowden – Cynefin framework, sense making, complexity theory and exaptation (06 March 2015)
Dave Snowden's seminar with the Tier 2 Policy Leaders Network (and a few other avid followers of his work) explored decision making and management practice in policy, among other things. He discussed using the Cynefin framework for making sense of what’s going on, making decisions and taking action. For more information watch Dave Snowden explain these concepts in this lecture or check out his blog on the Cognitive Edge website.
Seminar series: Dr Zina O'Leary – Authentic story-telling: adding persuasion to the policy tool kit (18 February 2015)
Dr Zina O’Leary joined us for a roundtable discussion with the Tier 2 Policy Leaders Network on Authentic story-telling: adding persuasion to the policy tool kit. Zina talked about the importance of story-telling in supporting policy change and the role of story-telling in evidence-based policy. The group then had a wider discussion about the use, risks and benefits of storytelling in the policy process.
2014
Seminar series: Dr David Albury – building innovative practice into policy development (18 November 2014)
For almost two decades, David has consulted and advised on forming and implementing strategies and policies for transformation and innovation in education, healthcare and other public services. David led a discussion with the Tier 2 Policy Leaders Network about how to encourage greater user-centricity and innovation in the New Zealand policy system.
Policy Analyst Forum (23 October 2014)
The Policy analyst forum was designed by analysts, for analysts. It provided an opportunity for 64 early career analysts from across the public service to share their ideas for improving policy capability, quality and performance. At the end of the session, the analysts were joined by members of the Tier 2 Policy Leaders Network.
Policy Leaders Forum (31 July 2014)
The Policy Forum provided an opportunity for 83 policy professionals (from 23 agencies) and thought leaders from across the public service to co-design the roadmap and programme of work for the Policy Project.
2013
Building buy-in and making the model stick – David Albury (26 September 2013)
The session was led by David Albury who presented myths and emergent strategies to drive innovation/transformation, based on his wealth of international experience. David is Director of The Innovation Unit Ltd (UK); Associate of the UK Institute for Government; Visiting Professor in innovation Studies, King’s College London; and Design and Development Director of the Global Education Leaders’ Programme.