Scoping SDD Projects Part II: Issues Trees

1. Scoping SDD Projects Part II: Issues Trees

2. Agenda What is an issues tree? When is it useful to develop an issues tree? How are issues trees useful? How are issues trees different to statement trees? How to create an issues tree Examples Further information

3. What is an issues tree?An issues tree is a type of logic tree that captures the key issue or question the project is addressing and its component parts These are the questions we need to answer in order to answer the Level 1 question These are the questions we need to answer in order to answer the Level 2 questions Project Question Source: Foresight UK, HSC Toolkit: http://hsctoolkit.tribalhosting.net/Helpful-hints-8.html

4. When is it useful to develop an issues tree?An issues tree can be developed once the actual problem has been defined and the project’s overarching question is known Scoping: Establish the scope and the distinctive contribution SDD can make Identify the real problem or issue Communicate and/or agree the project scope with sponsor and stakeholders Structure our thinking about the problem and our project Plan for how our work needs to be positioned Gain an understanding of the problem Articulate the question we are being asked

5. How are issues trees useful? Issues trees have a number of benefits . . . • Problem solving effectiveness • Helps identify and focus on critical issues, analyse specific key questions • Helps to avoid major issues being missed • Problem solving efficiency • Avoids duplication of, or unnecessary work • Helps structure work pieces of manageable size and complexity • Helps explicitly prioritise pieces of work • Project management • Disaggregate question/problem into pieces that can be tackled separately by different team members or pairs, or at different points in time • Issues tree branches can help to plan workstreams or modules • Team building • Strong sense of direction and clarity of roles • Common mental model and aspirations • Facilitates team contributions • Communication • Clarifies team’s thinking to the stakeholders • Provides common language across the project • Acts as starting point for the story line • Shows the shape and direction of work and can communicate the broad outline of the project • Tool to focus attention on part of a problem, for example to bound the scope of a meeting

6. Why are issues trees useful? … but be mindful that issues trees also have a couple of limitations Often it is important to consider the interrelationships between branches of an issues tree Issues trees do not (by themselves) give a sense of priorities

7. Argument 1 Statement(potential answer) Argument 2 Issue (question) Argument 3 How are issues trees different to statement trees? We can use two main types of logic trees depending on how familiar we are with the problem Issue tree (scoping) Statement tree (policy analysis) • Use early in the project when the problem is new • Use to help structure the project plan and analysis • Use when you can propose a hypo-thetical solution to your problem • Use it to help structure the conclusions, recommendations and storyline

8. How to create issues trees Step 1: Start with the project question Defining the project question is one of the first things a project team does The Question is recorded on the project scoping slide Project Question Source: Foresight UK, HSC Toolkit: http://hsctoolkit.tribalhosting.net/Helpful-hints-8.html

9. How to create issues trees Step 2: Then ask what questions do I need to answer in order to be able to answer the first question? The lower-level questions should together give the answer to the higher level question and should cover all the issues needing to be resolved, without overlapping each other. (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) The Level 2 questions can then be further broken down, and so on, until a level of questions is reached that address the fundamental root causes of the original issue. Specific analysis can then be designed to address each branch of the issues tree. What are the most effective forms of childcare to help parent into work? How can we most effectively increase employment rates through improving access to childcare? How can governments best support parents in accessing these forms of childcare? These are the questions we need to answer in order to answer the Level 1 question These are the questions we need to answer in order to answer the Level 2 questions Project Question Sources: Foresight UK, HSC Toolkit: http://hsctoolkit.tribalhosting.net/Helpful-hints-8.html , and the UK Strategy Unit Survival Guide

10. How to create issues trees Step 3. Iterate and evaluate • For any problem, there will be a number of ways of drawing out the issue tree, which largely depend on the way in which the first set of branches is constructed • It is worth having a number of attempts at the tree (perhaps done by different members of the team), using different structures • The trees can then be evaluated on the basis of how well they seem to be working in terms of breaking down the issues into smaller, answerable questions; in terms of breaking the project out into workstreams; and in terms of structuring future communications (reports or other documents) Source: UK Strategy Unit Survival Guide

11. Relevant How to create issues trees Summary - design principles • Use the MECE principle, trying to ensure that the branches of the tree are Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive, so that the problem space is covered efficiently • All elements at the same level should be of the same nature (consistent) • Elements should be necessary and sufficient for supporting the previous level (relevant) • There’s no single correct answer, there are many ways to break up any problem • Can you break the question down by cohort, by barrier, by action, or some other categorisation? • Branches of the issues tree can correspond to modules or streams of work in a project plan Consistent MECE Question MECE

12. How to create issues trees More characteristics of good issue analyses Description Mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive • No gaps, no overlaps • Includes a complete and comprehensive list of issues • Issues disaggregated into separate “branches”that can be considered independent of the others 1 2 Practical and actionable • Readily provides a plan for splitting up the work among team members • Allows sequencing of analysis, as pieces not dependent on each other (or flow of dependency known) Logical and hierarchical • Subparts flow into parts that flow into the whole • Same level issues at the same level of the hierarchy - abstract and detailed concepts not mixed • Order of issues based on some commonly accepted logic (e.g., chronological, importance, size, convention) 3 Clear and consistent • Concepts at same level of the hierarchy are parallel, i.e., members of the same class of things or stepsin the same process • Language used is simple and preferably familiar too • All statements phrased as “How” or “What” questions (issue trees) or statements (hypothesis trees) 4

13. Examples • Sample issues tree (1) – determining how to manage the use of psychoactive substances Source: Foresight UK, HSC Toolkit: http://hsctoolkit.tribalhosting.net/Helpful-hints-8.html

14. Further information Horizon Scanning Centre strategic thinking toolkit, Foresight UK, http://hsctoolkit.tribalhosting.net/Issues-trees.html Strategy Survival Guide, UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, http://interactive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/survivalguide/skills/s_issue.htm The Pyramid Principle, Barbara Minto – useful book on using logic to structure thinking, arguments and communication