Guidelines & Advisories Development Process

Topics for professional practice guidelines and practice advisories are identified in several different ways:

• Demand-Based: Request from government, industry, or the professional community
• Strategy-Based: Engineers and Geoscientists BC initiative based on analyzing trends and directions of government and industry
• Practice-Based: Tracked practice inquiries, practice reviews, investigation, and disciplinary proceedings, or industry/public feedback brought to the attention of the Board
• Reaction-Based: As a result of an engineering/geoscience failure or near-miss

In consultation with the Professional Practice Advisory Group, Engineers and Geoscientists BC uses a risk-based approach to determine the priorities for the creation and revision of professional practice guidelines and practice advisories. Considerations include, but are not limited to:

• Risk to public safety and the environment if guidance is not published;
• Whether similar guidance exists elsewhere;
• Whether another regulatory body has requested support or expressed need for guidance;
• Who the audience for the guidance is;
• Resource availability, including funding; and
• Timing (e.g., in response to new legislation or a failure or near-miss).

Once a topic for a professional practice guideline is determined a priority, it is developed using the following process:

1. Content Development: 2–5+ subject matter experts
2. Formal Review: 5–15+ stakeholders (e.g., subject matter experts, authorities having jurisdiction, government bodies, other regulatory bodies, representatives of industry groups)
3. General Consultation: Engineers and Geoscientists BC Advisory Groups and other relevant technical or industry groups
4. Board: approval to proceed with final reviews and publication based on the development and consultation process followed
5. Final Reviews: editorial and legal
6. Design: formatting and branding
7. Publication: guidelines posted on the website, notification articles published in eNews and Innovation
8. Webinar: free webinar to introduce the key principles presented in the guidelines

The guideline development process can range from 1 year, for a funded guideline, to approximately 2–3 years for a non-funded guideline.

Practice advisories follow a similar, albeit less formal, development process as guidelines. The formal review and general consultation stages typically occur at the same time and practice advisories do not require Board approval prior to final reviews, design, and publication. The practice advisory development process typically takes several months to complete.

Once published, guidelines and advisories are reviewed on a 5-year cycle to determine whether the content within the document requires updating, and are prioritized using the considerations listed above. Visit the Guidelines & Advisories webpage for access to the current version of all Engineers and Geoscientists BC professional practice guidance documents.

Registrants looking to propose a topic for a future guidance document, revisions to an existing one, or the adoption of one published by another regulatory body can fill out the Request for Guidance form and send it to [email protected].