The amount of complex new regulations and related implementation projects are putting an increasing burden on organizations. The ’tsunami’ of new regulations is often indicated as the culprit, but the way in which a company anticipates this is just as decisive.

Learn to surf the regulatory wave

My experience is that the following method works well:

• Identify overarching themes and bring them together within one implementation programme
• Select project members based on theme knowledge and business experience
• Work with multidisciplinary teams

I call my approach the theme-driven methodology. The starting point is an extensive analysis of (upcoming) regulations with the aim of identifying common themes on the basis of which organization-wide action points can be determined.

In this method, the regulations themselves are not the norm for the design and implementation of implementation processes, but this is determined on the basis of distinguishable themes within the various types of regulations. The advantage of this is that related topics can be assigned to a project group, consisting of members who have specific knowledge of and / or experience with this sub-area.

Because the project groups are composed in a multidisciplinary manner with relevant project members, it is easier to perform a conclusive gap analysis for each theme on the basis of which the action points are determined. The project group has the ability and the mandate to consistently combine the themes in internal policies, work processes, systems and internal control mechanisms. The advantage of this is that it is possible to opt for solutions that transcend regulations.

Would you like to know more about this theme-driven implementation approach? Feel free to reach out to me. You can also read the article which I wrote for the Lustrum collection 2015 of the Netherlands Association for Company Lawyers click on link