92 7. The policymaker’s complexity toolkit Jim Price and Philip Haynes with Mary Darking, Julia Stroud, Chris Warren-Adamson and Carla Ricaurte Evolution is cleverer than you are. Orgel’s Second Rule INTRODUCTION As discussed in the introductory chapter, one of complexity theory’s most useful con- tributions to policymaking and implementation may be the provision of a unifying language between different disciplines and professions, between ‘theorists’ and ‘prac- titioners’. Whilst not quite yet the ‘Esperanto’ of scientific and social enquiry (Lissack, 1999), the framing of concepts with similar phraseology, models and conceptual meta- phors might help both policymakers and practitioners communicate more effectively and begin to promote a common understanding of approaches to enquiry and policy imple- mentation across disciplinary and cultural boundaries (Klein, 2004; Cooper et al., 2004; Price, 2005). Indeed contributors to this chapter come from different disciplines within one academic institution and have all found ‘complexity’ to be a commonly understood framework (if not completely uniformly interpreted), through which productive conver- sations regarding policy and practice can occur. We introduce the Brighton Complex Systems Toolkit (CSTK, 2012) to represent an example of successful collaborative prac- tice, and frame a modified version as a suggested ‘Complex Practice Toolkit’, advocating a complexity approach, informed by an ‘evolutionary’ discourse, for both policymakers and those implementing policy (practitioners). This chapter first discusses our interpretation of what might be called ‘hard and soft’ complexity, provides a concrete example of using complexity in practice to develop a cross-sector ‘toolkit’ for practitioners, and then goes on to suggest and explore seven tools for a ‘Complex Practice Toolkit’ for policymakers, based on our experiences and informed by theoretical perspectives. Our intention is to help the policymaker and practitioner appreciate rule and value- based interactions between different agents (with different strategies) in their defined systems, to enable communication, information capture and recall, leading to pattern recognition, sense making and the evaluation of outcomes. The ultimate goal is to select and amplify successful work-streams and damp down of those less successful in an adap- tive or evolutionary sense. We acknowledge that evolution and adaptation will occur in most complex systems (that is those involving humans), but in the area of policy-making, we hope to guide those in positions of influence to facilitate what has been termed an ‘ecology of innovation’ (Goldstein et al., 2010), and hope that the ‘Complex Practice Toolkit’ might act as a catalyst for action and change. GEYER 9781782549512 PRINT (M3643) (G).indd 92 18/02/2015 09:02