There is a growing recognition that many problems facing policies and programmes are complex and need to be treated as such. Implementation must deal with interdependent problems, navigating nonlinear and often unpredictable change processes, involving a diverse range of stakeholders.
The first half of this paper aims to give readers the tools to decide in what way, and to what degree, the challenges they face are complex – and sets out the central reasons why complex problems present big challenges for traditional approaches to implementation:
The capacities to tackle complex problems are often distributed among actors:
Complex problems are difficult to predict
Complex problems often involve conflicting goals
Traditional tools tend to be based on inappropriate assumptions for complex problems, and as such, when they are applied in the wrong context, a number of negative side-effects can arise. Formal implementation tools may decrease in relevance, key aspects of problems are hidden from sight, and managers may be presented with perverse incentives. The problem, however, is not (necessarily) intractable problems, or poor application of the right tools, but rather use of the wrong tools for the job. In recent years, the complexity sciences have improved our understanding of complex problems, and have provided concepts and ideas which incorporate both old and new insights to present alternative theories for change, greater understandings of underlying processes and, crucially, better approaches for tackling them in a strategic and direct manner.
Furthermore, the ways in which policy draws on available knowledge becomes one of the central determinants of its success. The difference is that, rather than working in a linear fashion, policy-makers must be mindful of constraints and opportunities as to where, when and how knowledge and decision-making can best be linked.
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