PAC PAC Strategic Planning & Policy Development 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which planning framework involves working backward from a desired future state to identify the steps needed to achieve it?
- Incremental planning
- Rational-comprehensive planning
- Backcasting (Correct answer)
- Scenario planning
Correct answer: Backcasting
Backcasting starts with a defined future goal and works backward to identify the policies and actions required to reach that goal from the present.
Question 2: A state agency conducts a 'futures analysis' to prepare its 10-year strategic plan. Which technique is most useful for exploring plausible alternative futures under conditions of uncertainty?
- Randomized controlled trial
- Scenario planning (Correct answer)
- Regression analysis
- Cost-effectiveness analysis
Correct answer: Scenario planning
Scenario planning develops multiple plausible future narratives to help organizations make robust strategic decisions that hold up across different possible futures.
Question 3: When prioritizing policy options, which criterion asks whether a policy can achieve its goals with a reasonable level of resources?
- Political feasibility
- Technical feasibility (Correct answer)
- Economic efficiency
- Equity
Correct answer: Technical feasibility
Technical feasibility assesses whether an option can realistically be implemented given available technology, human capital, and administrative capacity.
Question 4: In policy analysis, which criterion evaluates whether the benefits and burdens of a policy are distributed fairly across different groups?
- Efficiency
- Effectiveness
- Equity (Correct answer)
- Administrative feasibility
Correct answer: Equity
The equity criterion examines who gains and who bears costs from a policy, including distributional justice across income, race, geography, or other dimensions.
Question 5: A policy analyst presents five options to a cabinet secretary using a 'decision matrix' that rates each option on cost, effectiveness, equity, and feasibility. What is the primary advantage of this approach?
- It eliminates the need for public consultation on the policy decision
- It allows systematic multi-criteria comparison of options in a transparent and structured format (Correct answer)
- It guarantees the selection of the lowest-cost policy alternative
- It replaces the need for stakeholder input with quantitative scoring
Correct answer: It allows systematic multi-criteria comparison of options in a transparent and structured format
A decision matrix makes trade-offs explicit and transparent, helping decision-makers evaluate options against multiple criteria simultaneously.
Question 6: Which policy analysis approach focuses on what is politically and administratively possible rather than what is theoretically optimal?
- Rational-comprehensive analysis
- Second-best or constrained analysis (Correct answer)
- Normative policy analysis
- Cost-benefit maximization
Correct answer: Second-best or constrained analysis
Second-best analysis identifies the best achievable option given real-world political, legal, and administrative constraints, rather than the theoretically ideal but infeasible solution.
PAC PAC Strategic Planning & Policy Development 2
Which planning framework involves working backward from a desired future state to identify the steps needed to achieve it?