Rules-of-thumb for problem-structuring policy design

This article provides practitioners with rules-of-thumb for policy design as both problem finding and problem solving. From their perspective, policy design is an inevitable moving back and forth between thinking out (“puzzling”) and fighting over policy (“powering”). It is, simultaneously, problem-structuring: “wicked” or unstructured problems are translated from problems as “messes” of undesirable situations to problems as specific, time-and-space bound opportunities for improvement. This article decomposes problem-structuring as an iterative process of problem sensing, problem categorization, problem decomposition and problem definition. For each of these problem-structuring functions, appropriate rules-of-thumb can be suggested that induce thought habits and styles for responsive and solid policy designs.