4.1 Multi functional drafting teams

What is a multi-functional drafting team and why do you need one?

Coding and law have historically been separate, specialised disciplines with limited crossover.

This means that there aren't currently many lawyers who can code, or many coders who are fluent in the language and practice of law (although many law schools are now working to rectify this).

Even if you do have someone who can read and interpret law, they may not be a specialist in the particular domain of the ruleset you want to code or draft.

What this means is that RaC projects are often complex and multi-faceted, and it will be rare that a single personl will have all the necessary skillsets. The most effective way to deal with this issue is to translate or draft your rules using a multi-functional teams, comprised of people who have the necessary skillsets.

Many hands may make light work, but in this case you need the right hands.

Who should be on your team?

There is no prescriptive structure for your multi-functional team. An ideal team could include:

• A legal advisor - someone who can read, understand and interpret terms and laws and understands legal drafting.
• A policy expert - someone who understands the current and historic policy positions that the ruleset is intended to implement. This could be a representative of the policy/ruleset owner - for example, the agency that owns the policy or administers the legislation. Having the policy owner represented on the team helps keep them them engaged and bought in on the process.
• A coder/RaC specialist - someone who can code the rules, and is familiar with the rules engine that you're using.
• A business/process analyst - someone who can help analyse and parse the rules.
• A service designer - someone who can help envisage the requirements of the service or services that the rules will enable; the service designer can help team members understand what a good service could look like, and build that knowledge and functionality into the coded rules.
• A project manager - RaC projects can have a lot of moving parts. Having a project manager can help keep you organised and on track.

Resources

The NZ Service Innovation Lab has developed The Practical Better Rules Manual. This sets out their methodology how to run a workshop to co-draft human and machine-readable rules.