Best Practices Induction training

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Best Practices Induction training

• Draft, June 27, 2005

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Why best practices?
What frustrated me beyond belief was the
inability of anybody at the UN to supply me with
information on how other missions had dealt with
the problem. I was being forced to reinvent the
wheel in a crucial arena under such a tight
deadline. - Gen. Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands
with the Devil The Failure of Humanity in
Rwanda. (On asking where to find resources to pay
for safe demobilization and reintegration).

• Institutional constraints
• Ad hoc collection of lessons and practices
• No mechanism for, nor culture of, implementation
  of lessons ? lessons arent learned
• Many functional areas go without official
  guidance conceptual and systematic problems with
  DPKO guidance

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Staff perceptions

• 87 of staff feels that they sometimes, often or
  all the time have to reinvent the wheel. (582
  respondents)
• 68 of staff has difficulty identifying expertise
  on a given topic sometimes, often or all the
  time. (571 respondents)
• 90 of staff would find information from other
  DPKO personnel on how to solve problems somewhat,
  very or critically useful. (558 respondents)
• 97 of staff would find it useful to know how to
  identify and capture lessons and best practices,
  but time constraints (47), lack of institutional
  incentives (45) and lack of knowledge on how to
  do so (17), prohibit this from happening. (more
  than 1 answer possible)
• 46 of staff received no hand-over time with or
  material from their predecessor, nor any other
  form of written guidance when starting their job.
  (579 respondents)

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Addressing the KM gap

• Peacekeeping Best Practices Unit
• BP Officers and Focal Points
• Toolbox project
• Guidance project
• Change management / portal

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PBPU

• Best Practices
• Back-stops the BP Officers and Focal Points
• Depository of lessons identified, good/bad
  practices
• Conducts several larger lessons learned studies
• Home of the guidance project
• Works towards ensuring that identified lessons
  and practices are taken into account in planning,
  policy and implementation
• Also
• Strategic policy (e.g. DPKO-WB relations) and
• Institutional home of thematic experts (gender,
  HIV/AIDS, judicial, corrections, DDR)

• http//pbpu.unlb.org ?

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Best Practices Officers / Focal Points

• Find answers to missions queries How have
  other missions dealt with issue X?
• Ensure previously identified lessons are taken
  into account in planning, policy making and
  execution of mandated activities
• Capture lessons and good/bad practices within the
  mission for future use and benefit of this and
  other missions
• Establish linkages between staff across missions
  working in the same functional areas

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BP Toolbox Project

• A project to develop tools
• primarily for field staff
• to capture, store and share knowledge
• that will benefit DPKO operations

• Handover notes
• End of assignment reports
• Surveys of practice
• After action reviews
• Communities of practice

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Handover Note

• To provide successors with key knowledge and
  information regarding the position so the
  transition period is as short and smooth as
  possible.
• Primarily contains procedural and factual
  information.
• At the end of a post, a staff member would use
  this template
• Not stored by DPKO, only meant to be a temporary
  document
• explain how in this mission staff is supposed to
  use this tool (incl. enforcement)

Handover Note Template Name
.... Job Title Date of
Handover Note. Duration of
Assignment.. Brief Description of
Duties. ..
.. .... Supervisor and
reporting procedures. Regular/re-occurin
g meetings, reports or procedures..
. Key Documents to read
.
. Status of projects/reports/meetings Name
of project/report/meeting. Status
Action needed.. Par
tners. Budget . R
epeat as many times as necessary Where to find
files (hardcopy and electronic).. Contacts
Your contact information after departure
Name Organization Phone E-mail Comments



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End of Assignment Report

• Reports by senior mission staff at the end of
  post to assess the implementation of the mandate
• Focus on analysis and interpretation
• Regular template provided to serve as a baseline,
  a degree of deviation is to be expected
• These reports would be stored and made available
  to DPKO staff
• explain how in this mission staff is supposed to
  use this tool (incl. enforcement)

• End of Assignment Report Template
• Name.
• Title of position.
• Date of End of Assignment Report
  
• Duration of Assignment..
• Brief Description of Mandate..
  
• Assessment of Implementation of
  Mandate..
• Issues.
• This should be the main section of the report.
  Within approximately 10-15 pages, authors can
  address any number of mission-related topics that
  pertained to or influenced his/her area of
  responsibilitys ability to implement its
  mandate. As a guideline, the following should be
  covered
• The status of mandate implementation upon your
  arrival
• Challenges to mandate implementation (if
  applicable)
• Lessons learned and success stories
• Recommendations for improving efficiency and
  effectiveness of mandate implementation
  (mission-specific)
• Recommendations that are applicable beyond the
  mission
• Summary of Actionable Recommendations
• This section summarizes the recommendations
  listed above. The recommendations should be
  clear about specific action(s) that need to be
  taken.

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AAR

• Self-evaluation tool for team discussion and
  analysis in a post-project meeting
• Focus on recalling events and initial analysis
• Meant to help future projects and actions by
  identifying lessons and actionable
  recommendations
• Meant to be stored in and made available via
  searchable intranet site
• explain how in this mission staff is supposed to
  use this tool (incl. who could be in lead)

After Action Review Template Name of
event/project Date or Duration of
event/project Team members Date of AAR
Individual who called the AAR Individual who
facilitated/ led the discussion at the
AAR Background Objectives of the
event/project Achievements/results of the
event/project Best practices / what worked
well Lessons learned / what did not work well
or could be improved Quotes from the
AAR Specific actionable recommendations Keywor
ds associated with this AAR Background
documents Contacts
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Survey of Practice

• A snapshot of current practices as they are being
  carried out right now by field staff
• A staff member or BPO would collect information
  from many missions, compile and edit with HQ
  sign-off
• Primarily contains procedural information
• Meant to be stored in and made available via
  searchable intranet site

Survey of Practice Template Survey of practice
name Date of report Author name and
title Executive Summary A summary of main
findings of the survey Description of the
practice Brief description of the practice that
was surveyed. Relevant background information.
Problem statement. A list of questions/issues to
be examined. Methodology Description of how
the information was collected and from whom.
Summary of responses A summary of responses
received. This section can be organized by
issues. Trends, discrepancies, local conditions
should be included in this section. - Issue
1 - Issue 2 Conclusions Description of
areas of uniform practice and areas of major
discrepancies. This section could also point out
any areas that require the development of further
guidance or clarification or discussion. Additi
onal resources This could list key documents,
key contacts, websites, or any other information
that might be useful for obtaining further
information regarding the practice.
.. ..
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Communities of Practice

• A networking tool to connect practitioners in
  different missions with each other (via
  facilitator)
• Facilitates email discussion, sharing of
  documents, experiences, practices and lessons.
• Depending on resources, some have websites and
  facilitators, others are simply email lists of
  functional counterparts

• Pilot Community of Practice in Rule of Law
  (facilitated)
• Email-based forum for Contingent-owned Equipment

• Spontaneous communities
• Payment and Allowance officers
• Broadcast technology
• QIPs

• Other areas that are interested
• Gender
• Supplies/Rations
• Civil Affairs
• Others?

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A Doctrine System (Guidance project)
PRACTICE EXPERIENCE
TRAINING
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DPKO Portal

• Provides wide variety of resources (forms,
  training resources, vacancies, etc)
• Houses guidance and best practices material
• Will include forums where staff can meet
  (chatrooms)

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Some tips

• Calling other missions and UNHQ is free! Use the
  mission prefix followed by your contacts
  extension. All missions phone directories can be
  found in the Lotus email system.
• Useful websites
• DPKO www.un.org/depts/dpko
• PBPU http//pbpu.unlb.org
• ODS www.ods.un.org ? all UN docs
• UN intranet http//iseek.un.org/m210.asp?dept363
  
• DPKO intranet http//iseekun.org/m210.asp?dept15
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• Best practices database
• Use name missions shared drive

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Comments Questions

• Contact name missions Best Practices
• officer/FP
• NAME
• Tel.
• email