Policy Fundamentals: Orientation and Participation
Policy-related situations often show up before the work is clearly named, assigned, or owned. A request, recurring issue, informal conversation, or unclear hand-off can pull capable professionals into action before they know who owns the decision, what authority they have, or what contribution is needed.
This course helps participants pause before acting and make better participation choices. Using the SEAT Policy Lens, they consider ownership, authority, timing, and contribution type so they can decide whether to engage, escalate, redirect, or hold back.
Designed for professionals who support policy-related work without always holding formal decision authority, this course focuses on orientation and participation, not policy analysis or recommendations. Participants leave with practical language for contributing at the right level and explaining their judgment clearly.
- Identify policy signals and locate where an issue may sit in its development before taking action or committing to a contribution.
- Map decision ownership and role authority in policy-related situations, including when ownership or authority is unclear.
- Apply the SEAT Policy Lens to choose whether to engage, escalate, redirect, or hold.
- Explain a participation choice clearly and defensibly using role boundaries, sound judgment, and non-advocacy.
- Assess appropriate, inappropriate, and risky uses of AI to sense-check context or assumptions while retaining human judgment, confidentiality, and role authority.
Orienting to Policy Situations
- Recognizing when an issue may be policy-related or policy-adjacent, even when it arrives informally through conversations, requests, emails, or emerging work.
- Identifying early signals that policy judgment may be needed before ownership, direction, or expectations are clear.
- Distinguishing situational orientation from analysis, solution-building, or advocacy, and understanding how premature action can create rework.
Decision Ownership and Role Authority
- Identifying who owns a policy-related decision, including situations where ownership is unclear, shared, or still forming.
- Clarifying personal role authority and the legitimate limits of contribution in policy-related situations.
- Using the SEAT Policy Lens to consider timing, ownership, authority, and contribution type before deciding how to participate.
Participation Choices and Sense-Checking
- Determining whether to engage, escalate, redirect, or hold based on the situation, decision ownership, and role authority.
- Explaining participation or restraint clearly in workplace conversations without overstepping, advocating prematurely, or appearing disengaged.
- Using AI cautiously to sense-check context, missing information, or alternative readings while retaining human judgment, confidentiality, and role authority.
This course is well suited for professionals who encounter policy-related situations, requests, files, or decisions and need clearer judgment before taking action.
It is especially relevant for:
- Professionals who support policy conversations, programs, or decisions without always holding formal decision authority
- Team members asked to contribute when ownership, expectations, or role boundaries are unclear
- Anyone who wants to participate appropriately without overstepping, escalating too quickly, or holding back for the wrong reasons
There are no prerequisites for this workshop.
FAQ
SEAT stands for Stage, Existing Owner, Authority, and Type of Contribution. It helps participants look at the situation, decision ownership, their role authority, and the contribution that is appropriate before acting.
No. This course focuses on the judgment that comes before analysis. It does not teach evidence-building, options development, or policy recommendations. If you are looking for policy analysis course, check out Calibrating Policy Analysis.
No. Here, “participation” means your role in policy-related work. It is about contributing appropriately inside your organization, not designing a public, partner, or community consultation process.
Policy Fundamentals helps participants decide how to respond when a policy-related situation is unclear. Calibrating Policy Analysis is for participants who are already expected to contribute analysis and need to frame the right question, test assumptions, assess evidence, and judge how much analysis is enough.
Open to all members of the public.
$ 595 plus tax
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