Components of Decision Thinking

Every decision we make has three components. Whether a decision is related to a public policy, like defining national taxes or how to spend them you will need to have:  

A clear issue that needs to be addressed, which could be variously defined as “the problem”, “the opportunity”, or otherwise;
Resources that could be used to do something (this could be about money, time, man power, and the will and power to act) and, finally
A clear solution about how the issue could be addressed.

Of course these components are interrelated. If a problem is understood to be critically important for many people, for example, then the resources available to address it can grow, which could open new solution possibilities.

Overview of ADDIS

ADDIS is a Decision Thinking approach developed at i4Policy over the last 6 years through our work with governments and communities in more than 80 countries.

It is a mnemonic device for the main phases of a decision thinking process: Agenda Setting, Drafting, Decision-Making, Implementation, Sense-making.
The five phases can be broken down further into 12 steps.

Agenda Setting has three steps:

Care, to understand the people concerned by a decision area;
Initiate, to launch a process to address a particular issue along with collaborators;
Define, to identify and prioritize the specific issues, problems or opportunities, to be addressed

Drafting has three steps:  

Ideate, to explore, brainstorm, benchmark and evaluate potential solutions;
Develop, to transform potential solutions into draft decisions;
Consult, to share drafts for inputs and to then integrate feedback

Decision-Making has two steps:

Propose, is to suggest a decision be taken
Adopt, to consider and approve a decision through an appropriate process

Implementation consists of two steps:

Deliver, to communicate and execute the agreed
decision
Monitor, to track and assess implementation of a decision against desired results

Sense-Making consists of two steps:

Harvest, to gather insights from implementation and the overall process, and
Understand, to make sense of observations, to inform and inspire future decisions