A government-wide doability test.
Taking ‘doability‘ in making policy, laws and regulations is sind since 2017 established as a quality requirement by the Cabinet. The Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) released a guide about it.
And made a first draft of a doability test.
Maar hoe ziet dit eruit in de praktijk?
En hoe stroomlijn je dit Statewide, for the employees of all ministries?
The Ministry of Justice and Security asked Muzus to design a framework and writing guide for policymakers and legislative lawyers.
Using these tools, they can assess whether their policies are feasible is for their target audience.
Definition
What is doability?
People must not only understand policies, laws and regulations, but also be able to act upon them.
This is not just about a person’s cognitive ability, such as: intelligence or digital skills.
But also the non-cognitive ability.
Also called the “doing ability.
In certain situations, a lot is expected of someone. If the person then does not take the right actions, it is not always a matter of not wanting, knowing or being able. The inability to act then is not a voluntary choice.
In this case, there is insufficient do-ability.
Doing ability comes under pressure during stressful events, such as a move or a divorce.
In co-creation
Step by step to a prototype
We organized two sessions and a number of interviews with State officials: behavioral experts, policy staff and legislative lawyers.
What prevents policymakers and legislative lawyers from working with doability to get started?
What exactly motivates them?
And what does it take for the doability test?
Together we designed a prototype for a doability test and a writing guide.
Key insights
Doability analysis and test
During the survey, we came to a number of insights.
We share the three most important ones. Visualization roadmap Policy officers and legislative lawyers have many tasks and work under (political) time pressure.
Much is expected of them.
Visualizing the implementation of the steps makes it easier for them to get started.
Because behavioral advisors also play an important role in making policy doable, we also designed a roadmap for them.
This roadmap helps them support policy staff and legislative lawyers.
A continuous process Taking doability into account is a continuous process during policy-making.
We have therefore switched from just a test to an analysis and a test.
Feasibility analysis To determine whether policies are feasible, the policy officer asks himself the question.
Is my policy doable for my target group?
So the policy officer is not testing the do-ability of the target group, but his or her own policy.
The term ‘doability test’ does not cover it.
Therefore, we recommended changing this to “doability analysis and test.
The elaboration
How to move forward?
We did this project on behalf of and in collaboration with the team Doability test from the Department of Justice and Security.
The more user-friendly doability analysis and test are currently (June 2024) are being further developed. The ver expected that a first version will be published during 2024.
