Partnership working is becoming increasingly important in the policymaking process: no more so than in the UK with the coalition government’s ‘Big Society’ agenda. But the problem is not limited to the UK: the international search for hybrid forms of governance takes on a new urgency as we move towards an era of light touch regulation, small government and localism. This paper describes two tools which will help policymakers take a rigorous approach to designing, delivering and monitoring policymaking in the face of these complex issues.