Wicked problems: what are they?
Wicked problems have been around for a long time but have become increasingly important in the last 50-years.
The term was initially used to describe issues that were 'tricky' and could not be easily resolved. The two professors who are credited with bringing the term into everyday were Professor Horst Rittel and Professor Melvin Weber.
They listed 10 defining characteristics of what they saw as intractable problems, in their 1973 paper.
Their original definition, with my interpretation of what they were seeking to explain, is noted below.
- There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.
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Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
There is no way to 'fix' or stop the problem. Think of climate change, plastic pollution, water scarcity - there is no way to definitively 'stop' these.
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Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad.
There will be many ways to work with wicked problems, and the key is to identify which are helpful, and which are unhelpful - e.g. are you helping mitigate the issue or making it worse?
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There is no immediate or ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.
You cannot implement an action or intervention and know if what you have done will have solved it. See #3.
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Every solution to a wicked problem is a “one-shot operation”; because there is no opportunity to learn by
trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.
Because all wicked problems are essentially unique (#7) you cannot have a predefined answer. All you can do is try small things and see if they are helpful - if they are, can you do more and scale them. If they are unhelpful, stop doing it!
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Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a
well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan
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See #5 and #7 - there will be many ways to try working with wicked problems, and you might find that experts disagree about approaches - which is to be expected, as wicked problems have inherent complexity.
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Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
We have no way to study climate change on another planet, or plastic entering the food system in another world. At the truly global level of wicked problems, every issue is unique. At a lower level of complexity, e.g., regional or national, there may be similarities to other issues in neighbouring regions or countries. Still, they are not identical because they occur in different places with different people.
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Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
Wicked problems do not surface by themselves. They are always the result of other systems, and always the result of human decisions and behaviour.
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The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of
explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution.
What you choose to see as part of the problem influences what you will think about in terms of mitigating or working with it.
- The planner has no right to be wrong.
Rittel, H. W. J. & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155-169.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4531523
Today we can see wicked problems impacting humanity and the planet everywhere
Water, Land, Sea, Air
