Issue Resolution Process

About the Program

Category: County Administration and Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

Planning & Development Services (PDS) has reformed its Issue Resolution process to promote open conversation with customers by creating tools to better understand how issues are elevated to management. The changes focus on increasing transparency and encouraging the customer to work with PDS to resolve interpretations that may be unclear while empowering staff to proactively resolve and elevate issues. The revised process is based on two practices ― a Second Opinion and a Project Issue Resolution (PIR) conference. A Second Opinion from senior staff or management can be requested or proactively offered on a comment or interpretation of code when concerns arise. If an issue is not resolved, a PIR conference can be requested. This is a formal meeting where the customer, their team, and all other applicable County parties meet to discuss the applicable codes and interpretations. To use Issue Resolution as an improvement tool, PDS created a way to document frequent issues that can be used to make amendments to ordinances or departmental policies and as a guide in resolving similar issues in the future.