Project 2017

Digital Policy Model Canvas

Puts a policy proposal on one page so its assumptions can be argued with before it is drafted.

What it is

Adapts business-model thinking to public policy: the problem, who it affects, the intervention, the evidence behind it, the delivery mechanism, and how anyone would know whether it worked. It gives a policy team the same one-page argument a startup gets from a Lean Canvas.

Reach for it when

• A policy idea needs testing before it becomes a drafting exercise
• A cross-agency group needs one page they can all argue with
• An intervention is proposed with no stated measure of success

Running it

1. Start with the problem and the affected population, in their words rather than the department's.
2. Write the intervention and the evidence for it side by side. A thin evidence box is the finding.
3. Make the success measure specific enough that it could come back negative.
4. Circle the assumption that would do the most damage if wrong, and plan how to test it.