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Managing internal L&C stakeholders

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KA YI WONG Hong Kong, -, Hong Kong

Do you have any advice on managing legal and compliance team's requirements?



Often, they disregard our project timeline (under the false assumption that we are in Agile so we can take in any requirements last minute). The new requirements would catch us off guard, resulting in conflict between the business stakeholders and the L&C teammates. 



What concrete action can I take to manage these L&C stakeholders when they are so comfortable sharing compulsory requirements for launch at the last minute?
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Keith Novak Tukwila, Wa, United States
Ka Yi, (apologies if I mixed 1st and last names)

Changes which involve regulatory compliance are often a big schedule risk. One of the main reasons is that most people do not understand all the steps in the formal process before the regulator will find compliance. There are typically standard flows involved to review and process documentation, and longer if there are requests for additional information or other follow-up actions once information is submitted. There is only so much pressure that can be applied to go faster before you get angry regulators and legal issues.Heroic efforts are sometimes possible, but you don't want to count on them every time.

I would suggest you lay out the complete timeline of proposed change through regulatory approval end-to-end with standard flows for each step, and also the risk flows when the process goes from the "happy path" to the difficult route. Then you can explain to your stakeholders that any requirements change involving compliance findings is a minimum of X days for the simplest change with a range of additional time for more involved changes.

Keith
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Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada
Control partners need to be engaged as early as possible in a project's life cycle and if they will have significant influence or involvement in the delivery process, they might actually need to be made part of the team. If they are unable or unwilling to do so, you need to escalate to get appropriate engagement from them.

Kiron
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1 reply by Keith Novak
Jun 04, 2024 12:42 PM
Keith Novak
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Kiron,
While I completely agree with you in principle about early engagement with regulators, some government agencies are under-funded and under-staffed so while they too would rather engage early, they become overwhelmed with the additional workload. Their policy may be to refuse to review anything until it is a formal submission for credit for anything other than the highest priority issues requiring executive intervention.

In that case it becomes very important to plan for re-do loops. Even the simplest editorial change request from the assigned reviewer may involve something like a 10 day non-negotiable review period. Aggressive schedules without contingency buffer inevitably result in an unsatisfactory rate of late deliverables due to the most trivial things.
Keith
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Keith Novak Tukwila, Wa, United States
Jun 04, 2024 7:23 AM
Replying to Kiron Bondale
...
Control partners need to be engaged as early as possible in a project's life cycle and if they will have significant influence or involvement in the delivery process, they might actually need to be made part of the team. If they are unable or unwilling to do so, you need to escalate to get appropriate engagement from them.

Kiron
Kiron,
While I completely agree with you in principle about early engagement with regulators, some government agencies are under-funded and under-staffed so while they too would rather engage early, they become overwhelmed with the additional workload. Their policy may be to refuse to review anything until it is a formal submission for credit for anything other than the highest priority issues requiring executive intervention.

In that case it becomes very important to plan for re-do loops. Even the simplest editorial change request from the assigned reviewer may involve something like a 10 day non-negotiable review period. Aggressive schedules without contingency buffer inevitably result in an unsatisfactory rate of late deliverables due to the most trivial things.
Keith
...
1 reply by Kiron Bondale
Jun 04, 2024 1:47 PM
Kiron Bondale
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Agreed - when there is a case where the availability of control partners is a source of risk which can be avoided, mitigation tactics such as schedule buffers are the next best option. A longer term solution is to develop as much awareness or knowledge of regulations within the core team as possible so that the involvement of the control partners is more of a "rubber stamp" than the provision of wholly new requirements.

Kiron
avatar
Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada
Jun 04, 2024 12:42 PM
Replying to Keith Novak
...
Kiron,
While I completely agree with you in principle about early engagement with regulators, some government agencies are under-funded and under-staffed so while they too would rather engage early, they become overwhelmed with the additional workload. Their policy may be to refuse to review anything until it is a formal submission for credit for anything other than the highest priority issues requiring executive intervention.

In that case it becomes very important to plan for re-do loops. Even the simplest editorial change request from the assigned reviewer may involve something like a 10 day non-negotiable review period. Aggressive schedules without contingency buffer inevitably result in an unsatisfactory rate of late deliverables due to the most trivial things.
Keith
Agreed - when there is a case where the availability of control partners is a source of risk which can be avoided, mitigation tactics such as schedule buffers are the next best option. A longer term solution is to develop as much awareness or knowledge of regulations within the core team as possible so that the involvement of the control partners is more of a "rubber stamp" than the provision of wholly new requirements.

Kiron

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