Note the alternatives that key political actors are actively proposing or
seem to have on their minds. These may include people's pet ideas, institutions'
inventories of "off-the-shelf' proposals that simply await a window
of opportunity, and prepackaged proposals that political ideologues
are perennially advocating.
Try to invent alternatives that might prove to be superior to the alternatives
currently being discussed by the key political actors. It's good to
brainstorm, to try to be creative-but don't expect that you'll necessarily
produce much better ideas than other people have already thought about.
One way to coax your creativity is to refer to the checklist in Appendix
A, "Things Governments Do." For each entry on the list, ask yourself,
"Might it make sense to try some version of this generic strategy to help
mitigate this problem?"5 Because it is a long and comprehensive list, the
answer with respect to any single strategy will usually be negative. Going
through the list systematically is worthwhile, however. Because the list
is not very long, with experience you will need to spend only a few
minutes to decide whether any ideas there might be worth considering
further.
Always include in your first approach to the problem the alternative "Let
present trends continue undisturbed." You need to do this because the
world is full of naturally occurring change, and some of these ongoing
changes might mitigate the problem on which you are working. (Note
that I am not characterizing this alternative as "Do Nothing." It is not
possible to "do nothing." Most of the trends in motion will probably persist
and alter the problem, whether for better or for worse.)