Creative Problem Solving in Government: Moving Beyond the Obvious Solution

The first solution to a public problem is often the one the system already knows how to produce.

If performance is weak, create a new target. If coordination is difficult, establish a board. If capability is inconsistent, write guidance or commission training. Each response may be useful. The risk is that familiarity allows the organisation to move from diagnosis to action before it has understood what is really happening.

Creative problem solving creates a pause between the problem and the preferred solution. That pause is where better options become possible.

Reframe the problem

How a problem is described determines which solutions appear reasonable.

Consider a team that says: “Managers are not completing performance reviews on time.” The obvious responses are reminders, escalation and tighter monitoring. But a different framing may reveal a different issue. Perhaps managers do not believe the process improves performance. Perhaps the form is too long. Perhaps conversations happen but are not recorded. Perhaps objectives change so frequently that the formal cycle feels detached from real work.

The original statement describes a visible failure. It does not yet explain it.

Useful reframing questions include: what outcome are we actually trying to create? Who experiences the problem differently? What behaviour would have to change? What is the system currently rewarding? When does the problem not occur?

A stronger problem statement often contains more than one perspective and avoids embedding a solution. Instead of “how do we make managers comply?”, the question might become “how do we create performance conversations that managers and staff find valuable, while maintaining the assurance the organisation needs?”

That question opens a wider range of possibilities.

Identify assumptions before they become plans

Every proposal rests on beliefs about how people and systems will respond.

A new communications campaign assumes lack of awareness is the main barrier. A grant assumes additional funding will change behaviour. A central standard assumes consistency will improve outcomes more than local adaptation. A new governance group assumes the issue is insufficient coordination rather than unclear authority.

Teams rarely write these assumptions down. Instead, they are absorbed into the proposal and later treated as facts.

Creative problem solving makes them explicit. One method is to ask, “What would have to be true for this idea to work?” The resulting list can then be tested for importance and uncertainty.

An assumption that is both critical and weakly supported should become an early focus for evidence or experimentation. This improves decision-making because it directs attention towards what could genuinely change the recommendation.

Generate options before evaluating them

Government meetings often combine idea generation and judgement. Someone proposes an option and the group immediately explains why it will not work. The objections may be valid, but the effect is to narrow thinking before alternatives have developed.

A better process separates expansion from selection.

During expansion, the aim is to produce different categories of response, not polished business cases. What could change in the user journey? What could be stopped? Could responsibility move? Could the organisation alter an incentive, default, sequence or relationship? What would the smallest useful intervention look like? What would a radically ambitious version involve?

Only after a genuine range exists should the team evaluate feasibility, cost, impact and risk.

This is not an invitation to suspend reality. Constraints matter. But treating every constraint as fixed too early means the organisation never discovers which ones could be changed.

Borrow intelligently

Public sector innovation does not require every idea to be invented from nothing.

Different sectors often face structurally similar problems: building trust, helping people navigate complexity, encouraging early action or coordinating across organisational boundaries. A method used in healthcare, regulation, education or customer service may contain a principle that can be adapted elsewhere.

The important word is adapted. Copying a fashionable model without understanding why it worked usually produces disappointment. Context matters, especially in government where legal duties, political accountability and public value shape what is possible.

Teams should ask what mechanism made the original approach effective. Was it simplicity, rapid feedback, peer influence, a changed incentive or a more trusted relationship? That mechanism may be transferable even when the visible model is not.

Use scenarios to stretch judgement

Scenario thinking is particularly valuable when the future is uncertain.

At PwC, I worked with colleagues across political, regulatory and sector teams to examine policy announcements, possible election outcomes and the implications for priority areas such as energy, net zero and audit. The purpose was not to claim certainty about what government would do. It was to help decision-makers consider several plausible futures and identify choices that remained sensible across them.

Government teams can use the same principle. How would this policy perform if demand were much higher than forecast? What if the expected legislation were delayed? What if a partner withdrew, public attitudes shifted or technology changed the operating environment?

Scenarios reveal hidden dependencies. They also reduce the tendency to optimise a plan around one preferred future.

Prototype the difficult part

The word prototype can sound better suited to product design than policy. In practice, it means making an idea concrete enough to learn from it.

A prototype might be a draft form tested with users, a simulated ministerial process, a sample piece of guidance, a small facilitated session or a model of how responsibilities would move between organisations. The aim is not to prove that the entire proposal works. It is to expose uncertainty while change remains cheap.

Teams should prototype the part they understand least, not the part that is easiest to demonstrate. Testing a polished presentation of the concept may generate enthusiasm without revealing whether the core mechanism is viable.

The best question is: what could we learn in two weeks that would materially improve the decision?

Facilitation changes whose thinking is heard

Creative problem solving is not only a set of techniques. It is also a social process.

In an unstructured discussion, seniority, confidence and speed of speech shape which ideas receive attention. People who need longer to think may contribute after the group has already formed a view. Specialists may dominate with technical detail. Those closest to delivery may assume their role is to comment on feasibility rather than shape the solution.

Good facilitation creates more equal routes into the work. Individual reflection before group discussion, structured rounds, written contributions and smaller mixed groups can broaden participation. Clear criteria help the team move from divergent ideas to a decision without allowing the loudest voice to become the process.

This is especially important in cross-government and international settings, where hierarchy and cultural expectations may affect how openly people challenge each other.

Creativity should lead to action

A creative session that produces energy but no decision quickly becomes evidence that creativity is a distraction.

The work must end with clarity. Which ideas deserve further development? What assumptions will be tested? Who owns the next step? When will the group review what has been learned?

Not every session should produce an immediate solution. Some problems require research or engagement. But the process should change what happens next.

Creative problem solving is valuable because it combines imagination with discipline. It helps teams avoid committing too early to the first acceptable answer, while still moving towards action.

Government will always operate within constraints. The purpose of creativity is not to pretend those constraints do not exist. It is to ensure that inherited ways of thinking are not mistaken for constraints that can never change.