Experts say a shift in mindset is needed to address problems in the public service. 

Australian National University researchers Professor Jochen Prantl and Professor Evelyn Goh have been running a research project that involves training senior public servants to approach problems in new ways. 

The study has focused on the Defence and Foreign Affairs departments, and their grappling with three ‘wicked problems’ over the past few years - the COVID-19 pandemic, Afghanistan, and Sino-American competition. 

A ‘wicked problem’ is one that sits in a highly complex context, as well as being interconnected with other problems, and so can be extremely difficult to address. 

Dr Prantl says addressing these problems requires a “paradigm change”.

“Public servants need to be trained in a way that they understand, analyse and diagnose problems in their systemic context,” he told reporters. 

“If you want to address wicked problems in an effective way; there’s no silver bullet. It requires by nature a constant reassessment and recalibration of policy measures.” 

For example, governments require local support to combat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, but do so requires them to look past the country’s significant involvement in drug production.

In regard to COVID-19, Dr Prantl says national policies are undermined when governments do not collaborate to lift vaccination rates globally. 

He says his training sessions with public servants seek to shift mindsets away from pre-designed policies and siloed approaches. 

“As a first step: how do we perceive and understand the problem? Where do we come from? What is our mindset with which we disaggregate problems?”

“The next step is how do we draw the boundaries around the problem? So there is not only one way of framing a problem; there are multiple ways and depending on how we frame problems we can then arrive at different policy conclusions,” he said.

“What we really want is a public service that is more nimble and more creative in solving problems, and … open to create networks amongst government agencies which go beyond whole-of-government approaches.” 

The latest paper from the study is accessible here.