Logic Karen Baehler, VUW ANZSOG Conference on Project

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Logic

• Karen Baehler, VUW
• ANZSOG Conference on Project Management and
  Organisational Change
• 22 February 2006

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Purposes

• Essence and examples
• Uses in policy cycle
• Strengths and weaknesses
• Good and bad practice

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Core message is about intentions

• A logic model explains
• How the policy, program, or intervention is meant
  to work
• The policys essential theory of change
• If X, then Y
• If outputs, then outcomes
• The chain of intended effects

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End outcome () Well being for parents and
children
() parental mental health functioning
Positive role models for children
() social participation inclusion
() household income
Increased work hours and job satisfaction
Clients get the job, keep the job, then get a
better job
Clients matched with suitable jobs
Output Barriers to work identified and removed
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End outcome () educational achievement
Good schools get better
Some schools improve
Some schools fold
New schools are opened
Good schools gain pupils
Bad schools lose pupils
Parents choose good schools for their children
Parents obtain relevant information about schools
Output School voucher system
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Good practice A few points of grammar

• Outcomes
• Are achieved states, not policies themselves,
  processes or activities
• They happen to someone or something OUTSIDE of
  government
• The following are not outcomes
• The regulation of economic activity is effective
  and low cost.
• Regional development is actively encouraged.

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Bad practiceShoring up current policy

• IVL should be used to challenge the status quo,
  not to rationalise it
• Antidote is to specify assumptions and risks
• This needs to be done in consultation with other

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Good Practice Expanded Logic
Backbone
() ec growth
Assumptions
Risks
Poor quality RD or ideas not applied
() productivity competitiveness
Capacity capability
() technology product innovation
Profit-taking rather than investment,
inflexible demand
High price elasticity of demand
() investment
(-) price of R D
Subsidies lower price
RD mis-defined, suppliers prices up
R D subsidies
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On complexity (an aside)

• Effects of government activity on the human
  physical world are often very complex (though not
  necessarily large)
• Hard to measure and even harder to anticipate
• Intervening in wicked problems is full of
  uncertainty
• The world is not linear
• But, things that governments can do are limited
  (carrots, sticks, sermons)
• Logic of government intervention is usually
  simple and easy to state

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Bad practice Heroic leaps in logic

• Social policy These often occur near the top of
  an outcomes hierarchy.

End outcome realised
Clients behaviour changes (PRESTO!)
Client responds well to services
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Antidote

• Dont be afraid to include the obvious
• Get someone outside of your policy area to review
  the logic, to point out gaps

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The Matrix (Funnell 1997)
Dont forget assumptions
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Use of logic models in New Zealand

• Personal preferences of analysts
• Policy unit good practice
• Links to operations are still weak
• Links to evaluation stronger
• Obstacles
• Official Information Act
• Treatment of skeptics
• Central agency positions

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Top-down logic models

• Central agencies guidance to departments for
  Statements of Intent
• Prescriptive v softer approach
• Lessons learned
• Balancing control v influence
• Backlash is always a risk
• Impatience (hothouse)
• Need for options and recognition of variability

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Good practice Thinking fresh about paths to
outcomes

• Toward systems models of your patch
• Dont try to make everything connect

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End outcome Healthy body weight
Metabolism
Dietary intake
Exercise
Background health factors
Access
Choice
Income, etc
Self Control
Conven- ience
Infor- mation
Culture Habit
??
Tastes
Interventions ?????????
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End outcome Higher rate of economic growth
A
Growth in domestic sales
Growth in exports
Growth in export intensity trade with rich
countries
Existing firms grow
New firms born
Overseas firms move here
B
Expan- ding forward backward links
Increasing productivity
Increasing product innovation
Greater market penetration
Knowledge spillovers technology diffusion
C
Access to inter- mediate goods
Access to thick labour markets
for specialized skills
Able to meet fixed costs of start-up or expansion
Access to infra- structure
Access to role models worthy competitors
Access to specialised inputs
D
Outputs ?????????
domestic firrms supply each other with inputs
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Bad practice Unreadable diagrams (copulating
spiders)

• These may be useful internally
• But simplify the diagram before you use it to
  engage Ministers, other departments,
  stakeholders, etc

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Implementation matters

• When government intervention fails, it usually
  does so because of
• Bad policy choice, or
• Good policy, poorly implemented
• Logic models are meant to help prevent these
  types of failure by
• Scrutinising policy choice early
• Aligning implementation plans with policy
  intentions
• Organising and promoting learning
• Can it work?