Strategy Survival Guide

development process include brainstorming and other creativity tools. They will help you approach the issue
from a fresh perspective.
Hypothesis Tree
A variant of an issue tree is a hypothesis tree. While issue trees are likely to be most useful early on in the
project when developing the project plan, hypothesis trees tend to be more useful later on in the project in
structuring the conclusions and subsequent communications.
If an issue tree starts with one question; a hypothesis tree starts with one statement. Each level of the
hypothesis tree is linked with the questions "why?" or "how?". This ensures that the lower level hypotheses
together answer the higher level hypothesis. An example of this might be: higher level hypothesis:
"Government can best support parents moving into work by ensuring availability of out-of-school childcare in
the local area through pump-priming of provision of this type". The next layer of the tree will answer "Why?":
• Out-of-school care will have the greatest effects in getting parents into work.
• The price of out-of-school care is reasonable, it is the availability that is the problem, caused by
difficulties amongst out-of-school clubs in meeting start-up costs.
Note that to some extent, using a hypothesis tree relies on having some knowledge of the content of the
likely solutions.
Work planning
Issue or hypothesis trees can feed directly into detailed work planning. A work plan could have sub-issues on
the left hand side, with activities to answer the question, sources and outputs on the right. For example:
Issue Sub-issue Activities Sources Outputs Responsible Due
date
What are the most
effective forms of
childcare to help
parents into work?
What forms of
childcare are most
working parents
currently using?
Review the
evidence on use
of childcare by
working parents
Parents
Demand for
Childcare
Survey
Paper on the most
effective childcare to
get parents into work,
including estimated
impact
Strengths
• A powerful tool providing the opening question is right – wide enough but not so wide that issues
outside the scope of the study are included – to find the most effective initial breakdown.
• Can be used to structure the development of the project and define the workstreams.
Weaknesses
• Interdependent issues may be divided across branches of the tree. It is worth keeping this in mind.
• Does not give any sense of priorities. The team should focus on those areas of the tree that are
likely to have the most impact on the eventual conclusions and impact of the project.
Resources
"The Pyramid Principle" by Barbara Minto gives an explanation of the type of logic involved in thinking in tree
structures.
Strategy Survival Guide – Strategy Skills
Page 92