Options Analysis as Context-Responsiveness in Practice: Integrating Diagnosis, Expertise, and Negotiation (Refining Communicative Planning and Critical Pragmatism)

Abstract In settings of uncertainty and ambiguity, inequality and conflict, planners must be context-responsive and improvise. As yesterday’s routines fail to satisfy tomorrow’s demands, few prescriptive rules – no musical scores – dictate practitioners’ actions. Four cases from diverse settings show how planners can improvise “options analysis” by integrating moves of diagnosing value, leveraging expertise, and negotiating outcomes. Practitioners perform options analysis with stakeholders by deliberatively asking and answering distinct but related questions of what matters, what’s known, what they can do together. Options analysis specifies, deepens, and extends communicative and critical pragmatic planning theories, raising new research questions.