Wicked Problems
Discussion on the Purplsoc paper
Gaining insight on intricate wicked problems and the hidden phenomena of the system
The situation the world is facing is the result of an intricacy of interconnected problems that result from interconnected emerging phenomena often hidden from view. These problems cannot be grasped as a whole because they cannot be formulated in a definitive way and there are multiple angles and points of intervention that cannot be encompassed into a single framework or frame of reference and to be dealt with linearly with set priorities. Rittel and Ackoff called these problems wicked problems or messes. They also pointed out that there are no right or wrong, true or false solutions to wicked problems; solutions may be contradictory and involve trade-offs; there is no history or proven practice and expert knowledge to refer to, data is uncertain and often missing; and the best information necessary to understand the problems is distributed in the contexts affected by the problem. The problem-solution approaches are limited when it comes to deal with effects that manifest at multiple levels and scales in the system.
 | Kurt Laitner 11:15 PM Nov 4 |
|
a reference for wicked problems such as "Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions" or some such primer might be helpful for the uninitiated.
not necessarily, mine is rather IT centric, its just my point of reference to the concept -
http://www.amazon.ca/Wicked-Problems-Righteous-Solutions-Engineering/dp/013590126X I'll go grab it off the shelf and see if it points at the source
 | Jessie Lydia Henshaw 1:58 PM Yesterday |
|
I think Rittel and Ackoff's concept of wicked problems was a great advance but a bit outdated now, and partly what a "pattern language" approach to reading natural relationships is intended to replace. I've documented many so called "wicked problems" as originating from the disconnect between human categories of information and natural units of organization, for example. Using Incompatible maps of relationships like that is itself a really wicked problem. We should address that in particular, making it clear that successful pattern languages need to address that very frequent disconnect.
| Jessie Lydia Henshaw 2:11 PM Yesterday |
|
The "problem-finding approaches" are often the most compromised though, as by being defined using misinformation regarding the actual problem. That is one way a pattern language approach can be inherently better for than a semantic or scientific approach, relying on comparing actual situations and viewpoints in the environment. As such you then rely on discovering nature's definitions of the problems.
Our mentally defined problems are reasoned conceptually in relation to our own categories of thinking and information, often at considerable odds with the organizational units of the environment. Our ideas of "money" is one of those. Nature sees money as information passed around connecting vast branching trees of services, by which every part of the economy uses every other. People see it symbolically as "their rewards" and little else. Our challenge seems to be to get those maps to align! ;-)