Issue analysis (Minto)

Issue analysis converts a broad strategic problem into a structured hierarchy of questions. It helps a team surface assumptions, identify evidence gaps and organise analysis around the decision that strategy must ultimately answer.

When to use it

• Use it near the start of strategy development for three purposes:
• Brainstorming: surface questions about markets, customers, competitors, prices, capabilities and trends.
• Evidence planning: reveal which questions require research or analysis.
• Structuring: organise questions into a logical pyramid that converges on a strategic answer without suppressing early exploration.

Origins

Barbara Minto developed the Pyramid Principle while working in management consulting and later codified it as a method for structuring thinking and communication. Consulting groups adapted its Situation–Complication–Question logic and mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive groupings into issue trees for problem solving and strategy.

What it is

Issue analysis begins with the decision or key question, then decomposes it into the smaller questions whose answers are necessary to resolve it. Risks and opportunities may be external—demand, entrants, technology or regulation—or internal—customer loss, capability, leadership or execution.

The tree is both a thinking model and a research plan. Its branches should make clear what evidence is needed, who owns it and how lower-level conclusions combine into an answer.