A growing bandwagon of commentators declare our collective existence is subject to volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Welcome to the ‘VUCA world’. Since populations typically turn to governments for support when crises strike, there is merit in policy scholars paying close attention to the ‘VUCA world’ narrative. This article assesses the implications of the VUCA narrative for policy professionals charged with conducting policy coordination and development. If volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity are becoming more commonplace, what aspects of coordination and development work should change? We indicate how policy professionals might harness new technologies and integrate them with long-term planning tools to help governments anticipate and reduce the consequences of crisis events. A lot of the technology now at our fingertips can be usefully deployed to assist with improved policy coordination and development to rapidly and effectively respond to VUCA-like challenges. Further, more ‘stewardship’ capability in and around government must be built to enable exploration of future scenarios so societies can stand ready to address anticipated eventualities. We conclude that the VUCA narrative can promote salutary improvements in the practice of policy coordination and development.
Policy Implications
In a VUCA world, government leaders should ensure that policy coordination and development is ready to meet anticipated challenges. These functions should:
- Build on existing procedures for best interpreting policy problems, proposing possible responses, gathering evidence to determine the suitability of specific options, and anticipating implementation challenges.
- Evolve to become adept at fast policy triage through better evidence-based practice, informed by the rapidly growing body of information about what policy responses work well within specific contexts.
- Continuously improve their data collection and analysis capabilities, supported by various forms of artificial intelligence, so that major, emerging challenges can be rapidly and effectively mitigated.
- Strengthen long-term scenario planning, bringing to many areas of policy development techniques that have long been deployed in venues such as war gaming, where lessons from the past are integrated into preparedness plans.
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