One of the core challenges for good policy and strategy comes at the start of the process: nailing problem definition and scope. Guides and handbooks often devote significant space to the issue and yet, in many people’s experience, we lack practical and intuitive methods that help in a clear and practical way. At Queritas, we are partnering with the Policy Projects and Taskforce Office (PPTO)at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to pioneer and refine a new approach that has come out of a philosophical, first principles approach. The technique, called Gap-Cause Analysis, is also a great case study in how philosophical analysis can be applied in practical contexts.
Philosophers spend significant effort paying close attention to the core concepts that we use to get a better handle on what they are and try to clear up common confusions about them. This approach can be applied to understand what sort of thing a government policy is and what, in general, the problems involved might be. This way of working often seems overly simple or abstract at the start, but becomes more helpful when you stick with it.
The first observation to make is that a government, or anyone else, will only seek to develop or put in place a policy, if there is something going wrong. If everything is going perfectly, there is no need or reason for anyone to act and do things differently.
The prompts the question: how do we know, or decide, that something is going wrong? A simple way of understanding this is that there is a gap between what is actually happening and how we think things should be. The policy problem is then defined by this gap between the actual and our ideal, and the goal of a successful policy or strategy will be to close or remove the gap.
That might sound fairly simple, but it provides a neat three part structure for thinking through what the policy problem is:
1. What is the current situation?
2. What do we think, ideally, should be the case?
3. What is the gap between these?
Just articulating the gap, however, doesn’t provide enough information to set up a productive policy or strategy formulation. We need to understand more about the gap, which naturally prompts a further question:
4. Why does the gap exist? or What is causing the gap?
This four part structure lends itself to a neat visualisation.
We have already trialed this method with the PPTO and the team there is likely to adopt this as a standard problem definition technique for all their projects. We will provide updates as we learn more from this experience. But so far, our experience is that this approach is beneficial for a few different reasons.
The immediate benefit of this method is that it forces us to think about a policy problem in a different but also more systematic way. In particular, it is useful for challenges default assumptions we have without thinking about them.
Building on this, the method also provides a neutral framework to understand and discuss different perspectives about what the underlying problems are. Many policy debates and confusions are due to different understandings of the problem, but these often aren’t recognised. More specifically, the structure of the framework helps clarify where people disagree and why. Sometimes they have a different understanding of the current situation, sometimes they disagree over the ideal and sometimes they see different causes at play – but these differences are often confused.
A further benefit is that it can provide a framework for more productive discussions about policy options or solutions. Most debate is at the level of ‘what should we do’ without recognising that there are usually unchallenged assumptions underlying any set of recommendations. This framework is particularly powerful at clarifying the assumption, especially the values judgements at play. Everyone bases their arguments for policies on a set of values or ideals, but these are often taken as self-evident or neutral even though they are in fact contested.
There is a lot more than can be said, so please get in touch if you are interested in more information or what to apply this method yourself. Alternatively, if you do try it out and have feedback, we’d love to hear.
