After two years of providing mediation services and working to improve the FOIA process, it’s time for self examination. During the last two years we’ve focused on figuring out how to do what we do while we were doing it. Our customers and stakeholders have provided valuable feedback regarding how we’ve helped them and how to improve our processes. Now it’s time to use this feedback – and to collect new data about how we are carrying out our statutory mission – to develop a robust methodology for evaluating our effectiveness.
OGIS’s small staff of seven makes this difficult to accomplish. So for this task we are fortunate to partner with the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP), which is offering its expertise and services at no cost to OGIS. HNMCP is a part of the teaching program at Harvard Law School. HNMCP’s primary objective is to teach Harvard Law School students how to apply the theory of negotiation and other dispute resolution processes in creative ways to help manage, resolve or prevent disputes.
Over the next several weeks, HNMCP law students Krista deBoer and Mike Nieto, in collaboration with Professor Robert Bordone and Clinical Instructors Jeremy McClane and Chad Carr, will study OGIS’s internal policies and procedures, case load data and strategic goals to develop recommendations on ways OGIS can measure its effectiveness. They also will gather new information to consider in developing these recommendations. The input of our stakeholders is essential in making this a productive endeavor. We would appreciate your thoughtful consideration if Krista or Mike contacts you in their efforts to gather information for this project.