Guest blog by Dr. Oyeyemi Ayoola FCA, IPP’23
My expectation for attending this Implementing Public Policy (IPP) Course is a tip of the iceberg compared to the learnings and competency skills in project implementation that I have garnered throughout this period of training, the course have changed my perspective and narratives of policy and project implementation in the public sector as a retired Permanent Secretary with 35 years cognate experience in the public service in Lagos State Nigeria. I have been able to learn, unlearn and relearn due to the systemic, strategic and bespoke teaching from information disseminated throughout this course, which has demonstrated the practical step by step approach and processes to policy or project implementation, problems or challenges identification and solutions to identified problems from the planning stage, which is different from the norm.
My learnings started with my awareness that IPP involves the ‘start to finish’ thorough planning and response to public challenges or problems by agents of government in furtherance to public interest, with a view of overcoming the challenges and utilizing available opportunities.
Policy workers and senior public servants must know that different challenges requires different strategies, therefore, they need to know a lot about the problems they are addressing, the people who need to be engaged, the goals they want to achieve, the context they are working in, and the processes they will follow to implement the policies and projects, also, they need to know that policies are often fraught with ‘unknowns’ that cannot be determined by a not too thorough planning processes, so there is need to know all that is needed for a policy to be successful, because the key step to effective project implementation involves determining the type of challenge that will be faced: A simple policy challenge, A complicated policy challenge and A complex policy challenge, as well as knowing that the level of ‘unknowns’ influences the type of policy challenge we face.
Prior to this IPP course, I did not know the role of authorizers, I just believed their approval to implement the project is one-off, The PDIA method has been an eye opener to the broader roles the authorizers play in giving legitimacy, support and approvals at every stage and during critical period of the implementation challenges.
The PDIA model has changed significantly my perspective in project implementation and management, I now approach project challenges differently, proffering different strategies to different challenges, for example, complex challenges requires constructing and deconstructing the problems.
The IPP course has taught me the importance of the ‘team,’ and the ‘leader’ in driving policy or project implementation process, especially on the implementation challenge I am working on during this IPP course, which is the: “Low Federal Allocation to Lagos State Nigeria from the Federation Account, resulting in poor infrastructural development and low economic growth.”
In the Utilization of the PDIA model, when problems are identified, corresponding solutions are designed to respond to them, it includes the collaborative roles of stakeholders and authorizers in policy formulation and project implementation. The role of a leader as an architect in helping the people understand how their work relates to those of others, in creating shared goals; as well as individual goals and establish moments of celebrating collective wins can not be overemphasized.
The ‘Tipping Point’ of learnings to me is the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA), that I refer to as the 21st century’s Project Implementation ‘Compass’ (PIC), the judicious utilization of the PDIA will continue to result in robustness of solutions to policy challenges in the policy space.
PDIA is Constructing And Deconstructing of Problems, a good problem allows real, sequenced, strategic responses.
Knowing that the construction process involves gathering key ‘internal change agents’ to answer these four questions:
What is the problem? Why does it matter? To whom does it matter? Who needs to care more? How do we get them to give it more attention?
This is exceptional. I have now learnt that to mitigate the risk, I need to ensure that the problems are broken down into smaller components, which involves deconstructing the problem to reveal its causes and then choosing solutions that addresses these causes, also that, Deconstruction provides the basis for problem-driven sequencing in the change process, where sequencing refers to the timing and staging of interventions and engagement. Sequencing matters a great deal in the development process and effective sequencing is key to doing PDIA. It involve introducing the “basics first.”
I am applying what I have learnt in the IPP class, by concentrating on identifying the problem as an entry point to getting solutions for the identified problem. Also my team, colleagues, stakeholders, authorizers and I have been able to incorporate PDIA model of constructing and deconstructing in our Key organization’s projects and operations, which has enabled us to have multidimensional approach to planning, budgeting and implementing policies and projects.
As I continue iterating, the journey to the successful completion of my current and future projects is very certain.
In conclusion, I humbly wish to implore my fellow PDIA practitioners that we should all see PDIA as the 21st century’s ‘Policy Implementation Compass’ (PIC), the judicious utilization of the PDIA model will continue to result in robustness of solutions to policy and project implementation challenges in all sectors of the economy and the policy space. In furtherance to the above, we should regard ourselves as privileged few that is exposed to this model.
This is a blog series written by the alumni of the Implementing Public Policy Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. 47 Participants successfully completed this 7-month hybrid program in December 2023. These are their learning journey stories.