Jari Kaivo-oja: 

Nowadays, the daily life of politics seems to be turbulent, fragmented and busy. This leaves the scientist in doubt as to whether policy approaches are coherent and rational. The big challenge of policymaking is that it must be planned and programmed in some way. In the field of futures studies, as a critical pre-condition of futures-oriented policy analysis is the identification of alternatives. However, before alternatives can be identified, there is an obvious need to verify, define and detail the problem. Problem-centricity is an important part of future-oriented policy analysis.