Policy Strategy and Innovation Primer

Charles Chao Rong Phua now runs Solaris Strategies Singapore (and chairs Solaris Consortium of Management Consultancies) dedicated to pragmatically solving complex problems supporting governments, corporates and underserved nonprofits at sector and enterprise levels, after two decades in government, where he functioned as a head research trainer in defence and chief external affairs supporting cities and infrastructural diplomacy. Charles also presides over Association for Public Affairs (Singapore) spearheading active citizenry in policymaking and served as chief judge for Singapore Model Cabinet and Parliament organised by government. He is an internationally certified management consultant – academic fellow (International Council of Management Consulting Institutes), facilitator, project manager, SAFe agile practitioner with doctorate in public policy, postgraduate/degrees in international relations, security management, education, accounting, systems thinking, organisational psychology and law, Charles completed executive education in strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, marketing and sustainability from leading business schools: Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, Berkeley, Babson, INSEAD, Cambridge, Oxford, London Business School. He currently serves as series editor for Routledge series for strategy, wisdom and skills with a commitment to codify academic + practitioner wisdom in applied and interdisciplinary fields. He teaches applied problemsolving at National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management University and Singapore University of Social Sciences, Civil Service College (Singapore), University of St Gallen (Switzerland). He was a Fulbright fellow and completed resident fellowships at Brookings, Columbia and Johns Hopkins. Part of this book was adapted from his course materials. He seeks to bring the best of corporate strategy into public policy academia and practice, in the right sequence and for the right purpose.

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface

1 Public Policy and Public Administration/Management: Paradigms, Practice and Paradoxes

2 Bringing the Public and Process Back Into Public Policy: A Citizen’s Guide to Public Policy Process

3 Macro-Situation Analysis: Environment Analysis

4 Macro-Situation Analysis: Organisational Strategies

5 Meso-Analysis for Policy Strategy: Interaction Strategies

6 Agenda Setting, Data Collection and Analysis Tools

7 Idea Generation

8 Conclusion: Towards Strategic Pragmatism in Policy Strategy–Innovation, a Research Agenda for Complexity

Index