Assignment 4: Debriefing the Task Force Meeting and Preparing to Work with the Simulator
Ellen and other staff members felt that they have learned enough about the problem and stakeholders’ interests to think about potential policy packages for their final policy memo. They have even sketched out some of their policy thoughts coming into this meeting. They learned that the DCD has a tool to learn about the effectiveness and potential impacts of policies as they may be implemented individually or as a package. Unfortunately, the simulator only seems to deal with spread of infections and deaths from infection and does not really get into any of the very important economic, political, and social impacts of the pandemic. For example, preliminary polling results from McAllister’s re-election campaign now indicate that he is trailing his opponent by double digits due almost entirely to citizen discontent with the pandemic. They will need to think about how to connect results from the simulator to their policy proposals.
McCallister’s internal staff team have already scheduled a workshop with the simulation and decided – in preparation for the workshop – to lay down what they believe to be main alternatives and expected results. They have also started to think about best ways to communicate these policies and gain support from different stakeholder groups. Ellen’s internal staff team has set themselves the goal of having a first draft of their policy memo ready before they interact with the simulator, and to use their learning in the simulator to explore the feasibility and impacts of their recommendations.
Ellen’s Fourth assignment
Ellen and her team are looking to the simulator as a laboratory that they can use to test policies. They have two things that they want to do to be ready to interact with DCD’s simulator. First, taking advantage of all the work they have done and the meetings they have attended, they feel that they are ready to clarify what policies they would like to test on the simulator. These would be the policies that they are considering finally recommending. Second, they want to learn a bit more about the simulator as a policy tool. Ellen recalls Gene Bardach’s eight-step view of the policy process and she believes that the simulator might be a good tool for completing Steps 5 and 6. She wants to review those readings.1 Also, she has gotten her hands on an interesting article by Kim et al. published in the Public Administration Review that talks about simulators as a policy tool. She wants to study that article.2
The team had time to share all their preliminary ideas on policies for Albon County, and now they are ready to prepare a first integrated draft of their policy memo. They are looking forward to have this draft in the next week.
