How to Change the World. Clare Feeney
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then) provided much more technical detail, and was a significant step in helping the development sector comply with the new policies and regulations.
Development of a new guideline from scratch is a big project, even when there are many good examples to follow. Follow best practice: involve the development sector and other stakeholders right from the start. They will help weed out unrealistic assumptions and pick up errors that fade into invisibility, as we become over-familiar with our magnum opus.
 | Look at the Box below to find out more about what ‘best practice’ means for a technical guideline. |
My observations of TP90 and my experience with preparing other guidelines,35 including a new erosion and sediment control guideline for Canterbury in New Zealand’s South Island36, have shown me the significant benefits the partnership process yields in both the technical quality and industry acceptance of the new requirements.
What is ‘best practice’ for developing (or reviewing) a technical guideline?
As environmental experts, we are understandably keen to leap straight into the technical specifications of our guideline, be it for stream bank planting, water pollution control, erosion and sediment control or whatever our topic of concern may be.
But it’s a great idea to step back and think about our pet guideline from a wider perspective. Who’s going to use it? Why would they believe us when we say they should use it and that it will work?
Recently I was asked to think about ‘contemporary international best practice’ erosion and sediment control as part of a review of TP9037. It was easy to find a good relevant definition for this: it was from the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), and said38 ‘scientifically sound techniques [that] are the best practices known today’.
Then I started looking for criteria for a good guideline – what else is important for a guideline, apart from the best practices that we want it to contain? Interestingly, much of the thinking about what constitutes a good guideline seems to be medical, but I believe it applies equally to environmental guidelines.
My 14 criteria for a good guideline that contains environmental best practices are adapted from two medical sources39. They specify that it should be inclusive, evidence-based, relevant, reproducible, robust, transparent, independent, practical, understandable, practicable, cost-effective, accessible, auditable and reviewable.
Here they are in more detail:
1.Inclusive: representative and multidisciplinary input from key stakeholders in a genuinely consultative process is used to develop the guideline – this is the partnership principle at the heart of good environmental management and training
2.Evidence-based: valid research and the best evidence is used to justify the guideline and its contents. Details of the evidence base are available and the cause effect/benefit relationships and assumptions are clearly set out to show how implementing the guideline can be directly linked to avoidance or minimisation of the adverse environmental effects of concern
3.Relevant: the contents of the guideline reflect local and national issues, laws and policies that are relevant to the guideline’s intended users, and changes to laws and policies are accommodated as needed
4.Reproducible: other groups would come to the same conclusions on the basis of the same evidence
5.Robust: draft versions of the guideline are reviewed by scientific and technical peers and lay users
6.Transparent: if users are in doubt, they know where to get more information, including data, assumptions and analysis, and how to contest these if necessary. A good example of this is Part D of Environment Canterbury’s erosion and sediment control guideline, where calculations about the design storm and the size of control measures are clearly set out
7.Independent: areas of debate and conflicts of interest amongst stakeholders and their outcomes are recorded and accessible for reference
8.Practical: a good guideline helps users to solve their real world problems and makes it easy for them to select the right structural and/ or non-structural measure to address them
9.Understandable: the guideline uses clear and unambiguous language, photographs with interpretation of what is being shown, and why, and simple, accurate diagrams that all intended users can readily understand – remembering that some users on the ground may have language, literacy and/or numeracy difficulties
10.Practicable: writers and users of the guideline and other stakeholders all understand the barriers to its use and the resourcing implications of its use for both users and inspectors/auditors
11.Cost-effective: the guideline helps to reduce the inappropriate use of resources
12.Accessible: the intended users of the guideline are consulted about the best ways to present it and access to the guideline is well disseminated by a range of methods
13.Auditable: the technical content of the guideline can be used to develop clear audit criteria for assessing the performance of its users
14.Reviewable: the guideline is regularly reviewed in light of ongoing research and use.
 | Use Action Sheet 2.2 to explore how well your existing or proposed guideline meets each criterion. |
Step 6: Training and capacity-building
The technical erosion and sediment control training that the Auckland Council does is summarized in Chapter 4, and I’ll give more detail about how to set up your training program and develop your training materials in Chapters 5, 6 and 7.
Here, I will briefly allude only to:
Training as a profession
Get help! Make sure you have expert training input into your early thinking.
Actually running your workshop is just the tip of an iceberg whose elements are only summarised in this book. Before I became a professional trainer, I didn’t really know much about people who specialized in training as a profession. Joining my local Association of Training and Development has been one of the best things I’ve ever done, and it’s part of a world-wide network of such associations.
Expert trainers will help you do much more than just run great workshops. They’ll help you learn how to build a business case to justify your training, do a rigorous analysis of training needs, set up an evaluation system and many other things that make for a great training program.
Recognition of training required as part of professional development
Many public and private sector professionals, including the engineers, planners, surveyors, landscape architects, scientists and others involved in land development, erosion and sediment control and other environmental activities, need to undergo a certain number of hours of training or other learning in order to maintain their professional certification. You can encourage these people to attend your training by making