How do you solve a a wicked problem?

Wicked problems, first identified by mathematician and planner Horst Rittel in the 1960s,  are messy, aggressive, and confounding.

According to Jennifer Riel, associate director of the Desautels Centre, you know you have a wicked problem if:

• The causes of the problem are not just complex but deeply ambiguous; you can tell why things are happening the way they are and what causes them to do so.
• The problem doesn’t fit neatly into any category you’ve encountered before; it looks and feels entirely unique, so the problem-solving approaches you’ve used in the past don’t’ seen to apply.
• Each attempt at devising a solution changes the understanding of the problem; merely attempting to some to a solution changes the problem and how you think about it.
• There is no clear stopping rule; it is difficult to tell when the problem is “solved” and what that solution may look like when you reach it.

Horst Rittel’s notion of wicked problems was detailed by C. West Churchman in a 1968 magazine of Management Science. Churchman described wicked problem as “a class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients, and decision makers with conflicting values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly confusing”. In other words, wicked problems are ill-defined and unique in their causes, character, and solution.

With hard problems, your job is to look at the situation, identify a set of definite conditions, and calculate a solution. With wicked problems, the solution can no longer be the only or even the primary focus. Instead, dealing with wicked problems demands that attention be paid to understanding the nature of the problem itself. Problem understanding is central; the solution, secondary.

Are there wicked problems that you are aware of? Is “Health care in US” a wicked problem? How about the long-term solution for the poorest nation in Western Hemisphere – “Haiti”?

Tagged as: Wicked Problem