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Home Courses Problem Structuring Methods Course materials Lectures Problem Demarcation

Problem Demarcation

Course subject(s) 1. Problem Demarcation

Problem Demarcation

The first step in structuring and analyzing a complex problem is to decide on the initial focus and scope of your activities. In complex problems, everything seems related and there are multiple perspectives possible on the same issue. Finding a suitable starting point therefore is essential to ensure that you focus your efforts on the issues that are most relevant to your client, within a workable scope and in adequate detail. This tutorial offers a structured step-wise approach to develop an initial problem statement. The use of a means-ends diagram is explained, in combination with the use of an objectives tree and a first system diagram.

Additional Resources

Course Book: “Policy Analysis of Multi-Actor Systems” Chapter 3: Systems Analysis (first part, sections 3.1 to 3.3.2)

Below are the two tutorial videos that belong to this module, as well as a download link to the slides that are used in the videos.

Problem Demarcation – Main Steps

This clip explains how you can demarcate your client’s problem in such a way that the subsequent analysis of the system will deliver the most actionable information to your client. The presentation covers the main steps and methods for doing this in a fairly abstract manner. A concrete example is presented in a second video clip.

Problem Demarcation: Example

Problem Demarcation – Example

This clip illustrates the use of means-ends analysis to demarcate a policy problem. It shows how a means-ends diagram is constructed by starting from the aim to reduce the CO2 emissions by the Port of Rotterdam. The diagram is then used to formulate a broad range of problems that could also be relevant for the Port of Rotterdam. For the sake of time, only one of these is elaborated further by constructing an objectives tree.

Problem Demarcation: a small example

Problem Demarcation Main Steps
Problem Demarcation Example
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Problem Structuring Methods by TU Delft OpenCourseWare is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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