Practitioners focus on necessary conditions. They usually adopt necessity logic: in complex situations they cannot manage all factors, so they focus on the believed “gotta have” (=necessity) factors that should not be absent for reaching a desired outcome. Results of a necessary condition analysis tell practitioners what (levels of) factors must be put and kept in place to prevent failure of a desired (level of) outcome, hence to allow the desired outcome to exist.

Researchers can use NCA to identify these necessary conditions. Gary Goertz’ (2003) first law states: “for any research area one can find important necessary condition hypotheses”.