« A Coordinated Strategy to Improve Legislative Management: 4 Vital Tips »

When thinking about legislative management, it is important to think beyond the agenda. An agenda doesn’t drive a meeting or turn into legislation, the elements of the agenda do, and each of those elements has a complete lifecycle of its own. Granicus had that very thought in mind when it added end-to-end agenda mangaement into it's Legislative Management Suite. Already,  nearly 100 government agencies across the country are using these tools to make their legislative process more transparent and engaging to citizens. Also, another major benefit of these solutions is cost-efficiency. In fact, when we surveyed our government customers we found they are saving an average of 329 hours per month on their legislative process—which equates to big dollar savings across the board.

In this article, we’ll look at four vital points for constructing a more effective legislative management strategy.

1: More than just buying a new tool, get ready for change IMPROVEMENT

In the past fifteen years, I’ve seen two very consistent pitfalls in municipalities that want to improve legislative management: piecemeal solutions and an unwillingness to embrace change.  

Legislative workflow within any government entity is a system. When it’s time to build a better system, to do things like go paperless, automate workflow, eliminate data and data entry redundancy, or just get things organized, employing a quick “band-aid” technology strategy to solve your problem (like a simple agenda assembler program, etc.) can often end up hurting more than helping: you spend more time dealing with conflicting file types, duplicate entry of data and hodge-podge processes that yield little for the complicated effort. But more importantly, be open to making some tremendous but ultimately amazing changes. Of course, this is a team effort and is most effective when everyone is aboard the Change Train. The only problem is that one curmudgeon who wants improvement without any change can derail that ride. Maybe it’s time to be more accurate: you’re not making changes, you’re making improvements… for everyone.

2: Centralized workflow… in a cloud?

By now, most people realize the value of cloud file storage: reduced IT efforts, security, disaster prevention, mobile access, etc. But there’s more to cloud computing than file storage. Imagine taking your entire legislative workflow and giving it the same benefits. Suddenly, not only is all your data available via the cloud, but all of the interaction and process that generates that data has the same security, efficiency, and mobility. People no longer need to be in the same place for your well-oiled legislative workflow to operate. Imagine a person who needs to approve an agenda item before it is placed on an agenda is out in the field, working with constituents; without so much as blinking an eye, he can be notified of his need for approval, review and approve it all from his smartphone. Centralizing your legislative workflow in a cloud is the ultimate next step in our new mobile world.

3: Tracking your entire legislative history.

It’s important to resolve the disconnect between various agenda items from differing meeting bodies and the final single piece of legislation they become. I think of this scenario as agenda centricity. The problem with agenda centricity is the scattered data. If instead, one simply changes perception from agenda centricity to agenda item centricity, it becomes clear that the complete life of an idea that turns into legislation can be tracked from its inception to its final disposition as approved legislation. It is a subtle difference with big impact. Now, by going to a record of an agenda item rather than an agenda with an item on it, you can see the entire history of its first reading, second reading, amendments, votes, committee recommendations and final passage. With Granicus, this completeness and centralization of record is easy. You can use one solution to track the entire history of an agenda item and click on any point in that history to see meeting video of just that discussion. Now, that is cool!

4: Don’t forget to be open… 24/7.

When people talk about open government, they are speaking about an idea that encompasses the whole of government decision making, but equally they are speaking about ease of accessibility to data. Government as a business provides information to its consumers, its constituency. A better business for the clientele is a better business for those running it, and what better way to run a business than to give consumers more of what they want without having to lift a finger?  Granicus’ new legislative solution can do exactly that. In a completely automated fashion, all legislative data is immediately available to the public. People don’t need to show up at city hall, submit a request for a certified copy, occupy your time, and waste paper anymore. Now, people can just find everything they need within a matter of seconds right on their smartphones.

But this doesn’t just benefit the record-keepers and the public, this benefits every department worker or elected official who need to easily look up legislation. Public works departments alone have found enough time savings to pay for such solutions.

Where do you go from here?

If you think about it, improving legislative workflow is about making effective use of a new toolset. Sometimes it needs a little mental adjustment to make the change, but with a positive outlook, change is exciting and fun. It’s a breath of new life. Granicus will be holding webinars throughout June and July to go into more explicit detail on the new toolsets available. I hope you’ll check it out!

 

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