Public Policy – What Is It?

As I have mentioned before in this blog and in the old Friuch blog, I get a lot of students dropping me a line asking questions about finding work, what kind of work they should be looking for and what my experience with various things I’ve done have been like. Today, I received a big list of questions about public policy. I completed my Masters of Public Policy at SFU [LINK] in 2006 and get lots of questions about the program. The list that I received from this person had some more general questions as well and I felt compelled to post my answers on the blog.

Here’s what he wanted to know and my answers:

1. What does Public Policy mean to you?

To me, public policy is to the government what business development is to a private sector business. I drafted the following table to show what I mean by this:

The column in the middle is Bardach’s Eightfold Path [LINK] – a common frame of analysis that you learn when you study public policy. What I am trying to communicate by this table is that the business of designing and implementing public policy has a lot in common with the process of designing and marketing a product or service. I know because I have done both.

In this sense, public policy is the product/service that the government produces. Policy decisions result in new social welfare programs (services), the decision to build new infrastructure (products) and things that the public consumes. It might seem counter-intuitive to think of what the government does as being market driven but in many senses, it is. Every consumer product and public policy generally goes through a fairly intensive research and stakeholder engagement process.

Neither a government nor a private company wants to go public with a new product or service that they aren’t fairly confident that the public will accept and buy in to. So what is public policy to me? It’s the process of identifying pain points, coming up with a solution, testing that solution against possible alternatives (such as not introducing a new policy), making a decision to launch and then coming up with how to sell it to the public.

2. What characteristics/traits is required to succeed in the field of Public Policy?

I take this question to mean “what does it take to be a good policy professional?” I think there are a few key characteristics:

- Curiosity. You cannot accept the status quo or a pre-packaged answer. Each situation a policy professional encounters requires reflection and a sense of exploration as you play through every possible outcome.

- Empathy. Every decision that is made based on your analysis will have a real impact on real people. You need to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the people your policies will be impacting and make sure that it still seems like a good idea.

- Patience. The one big difference between private sector business development and public policy is that there are very few opportunities (or the desire) to introduce truly disruptive public policy. When you are developing a product or service – you’re always swinging for the fence and looking for that solution that will change the game. In public policy, everything is incremental gains. Anything too drastic will alienate the very people that you are trying to help and will definitely not win you any friends in the political realm. If you’re a “right fighter”, you will find working in public policy very frustrating.

3. Who should avoid getting into Public Policy?

Anyone looking to “change the world”. I hate to be cynical about it but working from the middle ranks of the public service is not the way to “change the world”. This is another way of saying anyone who has personality traits that are incompatible with the points that I raised above. You also shouldn’t get into public policy if you want to get rich. There’s no money in it.

Don’t get me wrong – you’ll make a good living (and get a good pension) but if you want to make a six figure income and drive a fancy car, try something in the private sector or start your own business.

4. What do you think are the strengths/differences that SFU MPP offers compare to other schools? How about its weaknesses?

I have to admit to not doing much research into other schools when I looked at the MPP program. I didn’t want to leave Vancouver. I do know that the MPP program at SFU is a higher-level strategy program than the program at UVic and it’s probably more academic than the program at Carleton but (at least when I went), there was a definitely left-leaning political bend at SFU. That’s true of the entire school but if you are a true “conservative”, you might find yourself out of place at the SFU program.

I also looked at the Harvard program which is not necessarily better academically than the SFU program but will open more doors for you career-wise because it’s Harvard. Of course, the Harvard program is a lot more expensive as well.

5. Can you tell me a little bit about the career prospects (demand for your services, competition in the market, etc.) upon competing the program? What do you see in terms of its future trend?

I know that the majority of my classmates landed good jobs after completing the program. The only ones of us that did not necessarily land a good job immediately were the ones that weren’t sure we wanted to work for the government. I’d say if you don’t want to work for the government, you should seriously think twice about taking the program.

The closest I came to working for the government since finishing the program four years ago was a short retainer contract I did with a Federal government-sponsored non-profit but I don’t think they hired me because of the MPP. They hired me because I had a Masters degree and knew the trades space.

Having a Masters degree has definitely helped me in my career in the past few years but it is more of a check box for most employers. They don’t necessarily care what your degree is in.

In terms of competition in the market – there is a certain amount of excess supply of new policy professional in the market right now because of years of government hiring freezes. When I graduated four years ago, the government wasn’t hiring much and they’re hiring even less now. That will change when things pick up in the economy but if you can predict when the economy is going to turn around – you should go into investment banking, not public policy.

There will always be a demand for policy professionals. It’s a relatively small employment opportunity though and I wouldn’t expect to see an explosion of MPPers on the market like what happened with MBAs.

6. Any suggestions or advice you can give to someone that’s looking to enter the field?

Think about what is motivating you to pursue public policy. Is it because you like working on puzzles and problems and finding solutions? If so, you will probably do well in the field. Again, if you’re someone looking to change the world – look elsewhere.

I would also tell someone thinking of entering the field to talk to other policy professionals and find out what they’re actively working on day to day and see if that’s what you want to be doing. There are areas of specialization within public policy and you should have some idea of what you want to work on before you pick your school.

For example, I was keen to specialize in science and technology policy. I had worked with a special group at SFU during my undergrad called the Centre for Policy Research on Science and Technology (CPROST) [LINK]. I had communicated at the beginning of my Masters degree that I wanted to continue down this path but I didn’t really look into whether or not any of the faculty that were there at the time had any passion for S&T issues. They did not and in that regard, I was disappointed at the lack of opportunities to explore my passions.

That said, I did learn a lot that made me a better generalist and I no longer work in S&T policy on a regular basis but if that kind of thing is important to you – do your research. In my experience, the faculty I had in the MPP program were more interested in tax policy, first nations policy, retirement policy, electoral reform and environmental policy. We didn’t talk about much else.

7. Any questions I should be asking that’s not listed here?

You should never make your decision to enter a graduate program without asking similar questions of at least three other alumnus from the program and talking to the faculty. I talked to the Director of the program and she sold me on it. You should talk to her as well. I’m just one guy and I did a lot of things wrong in the program.

For example, I was married, had kids and a mortgage while I was doing the program so I had to work almost full time while I studied. That made my experience a lot different from the 100% dedicated students in the program.

I hope this helped and if anyone else is interested in the MPP program at SFU or public policy in general, feel free to contact me for more answers.