Pre-mortem. One very good way to come up with a list of factors that are necessary for your solution to work for you is to imagine that the intervention has not worked.

Thinking step by step. The technique is to think through how that solution leads to the desired outcome (sometimes known as “crafting your theory of change”).

Thinking backward. You can do this either by starting at the beginning with the policy implementation and ending with the targeted outcome or by thinking backward, from the outcome to the intervention. Try doing both!

Create quick exit decision trees. Decision trees are a familiar device to help with figuring out what to do. A decision tree starts with a question followed by two branches, one of which leads to NO, the other to YES. The NO is a dead end. “Suppose the first question is ‘Have we got the money to do this?’ If the answer is NO, you stop. If it is YES, you go on down the branch to the next question. And so on. If fully completed, it provides an unequivocal answer to the question, ‘Will this solution be effective here?’”