I guestimate that the average position paper consumes between 100 t0 200 hours to prepare and get signed off.
Committee drafting and signing off – the preferred mechanism for preparing position papers – is nothing but time-consuming.
As a rule of thumb, that means many position papers cost between €15K to €30K to get the paper out the door. I have low-balled the estimate. Given how many position papers are written each year in Brussels, that’s a lot of cash being spent (wasted).
A lot of position papers are pointless if their stated purpose is to persuade decision-makers. They don’t. If position papers are there to secure internal agreement, there must be faster and cheaper means of securing agreement.
I’m happy to offer a service to review position papers before they get published to see if they are pointless. Contact me if you want that service. I’m charging €5K – the mental anguish is high.
A Simple Checklist
This is the simple checklist I’ll use.