What is your policy on policy and projects?

The debate about defining policy is largely futile. “In short, the debate about definitions has largely dissipated without result. Australian academics, pragmatic to the end, gave up the endless definitional jostling to get on with substantive policy work. (1) ” I agree. I think we are too harsh in our desire for ‘black and white’ categorising and labelling. The same goes for the word ‘project’.


The common uses of the word policy include: policy as a label for a field of activity (for example, foreign policy); policy as an expression of general purpose or desired state of affairs; policy as a specific proposal; policy as a decision of government; policy as a formal authorisation (for example, legislation); policy as a program of activity; policy as outputs or what governments actually deliver and policy as a theory or model (if we do X then Y will follow).


A project may be explained as a temporary process, which has a clearly defined start and end time, a set of tasks, and a budget, that is developed to solve a well-defined goal or objective. But there is more to it than that. A project often results from the identification of a problem or need that requires resolving. The resolution is not simply a list of tasks to be ticked off but more about the processes to achieve a desired outcome. Some projects never end because no-one thought to explain what ‘complete’ is in the first place.

I don’t subscribe to the notion that policy and projects are on separate sides of a fence. But that is a common misunderstanding that tends to develop in the organisational world. It is a little like the ‘theory’ versus ‘practice/experience’ argument in academia – the reality is that both are needed and usually an integration of the two works best because one is dependent on the other. 
In my view, the fence often found to divide policy and projects comes from an over-reliance on systems thinking and a narrow view of policy. We can easily see this in a typical policy cycle:

Like so many systems thinking models, the cycle is idealised to a point where it does not match human processing of information. It might work well for a manufacturing line but to get somewhere close to human information processing all of the arrows would need to be doubled ended. We don't think of or process information linearly.

I like Colebatch's argument that there is a fundamentally different conception that he calls the structured interaction model:


“The structured interaction perspective does not assume a single decision-maker, addressing a clear policy problem: it focuses on the range of participants in the game, the diversity of their understandings of the situation and the problem, the ways in which they interact with one another, and the outcomes of this interaction. It does not assume that this pattern of activity is a collective effort to achieve known and shared goals.” (2)


According to this view, policy is not about the promulgation of formal statements but the processes of negotiation and influence; indeed, “it is concerned with relating the activities of different bodies to one another, with stabilizing practice and expectations across organizations, and with responding to challenge, contest and uncertainty”.


Considine argues, “policy is the continuing work done by groups of policy actors who use available public institutions to articulate and express the things they value”. It is the of deals, alliances and attempts at finding solutions involving individuals and groups including elected officials, bureaucrats, political parties, the media, interest groups and social movements; each with values, assumptions, categories, stories and languages.” (3)


“In a sense everything in the policy world is really just process, the movement of people and programs around common problems such as education, transport and employment. None of the initiatives in these fields stays fixed for very long because the problems themselves keep moving and changing. We cannot afford, therefore, to view policy as just a study of decisions or programs. The specific decisions which often interest us are merely important punctuation marks within this flow - not the thing itself.”

In this view the fence between projects and policy is dismantled. In fact, it can be argued that they are interdependent on each other. Worthwhile policies are dynamic, not set in stone like the Ten Commandments, and project work is the means by which policies can be refined and updated. In my view policy (i.e., guidance to decisions and outcomes) already informs the pursuit and support of projects. And vice versa, project outcomes can inform the development or redevelopment of policy. The balancing considerations might be “What policies need review/updating? What projects will help achieve this? What projects will address the development of new policy?” I think this is where the evidence-based approach to my work fits.


An issue arises where the link between the policy and project functions is non-existent or tenuous. If sourcing projects is perceived as simply to “make money” it will usually impinge on some core organisational values and the overall intent of an organisation. Projects therefore need to be thought of as informing relevant policy rather than as a separate activity. “To describe something as ‘policy’ is to give it special significance… The term is not a scientific absolute, but a socially constructed variable. Policy is a concept which we use to make sense of the world - but we have to work with it…. [the real task of policy analysis is not to examine policy as products, but to find out] what determines how things are done? "
1. H. K. Colebatch, Policy, Buckingham U.K., Open University Press, 1998

2. M. Considine, Public Policy: A critical approach, Melbourne, McMillan, 1994

3. G Davis et al, Public Policy in Australia, 2nd ed., Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1993