Ken et al

I'm inclined to agree with Ken's view and analysis. But I'd add a footnote.

Much of the discussion about 'wicked problems' only makes sense within a
system theoretic view. As I understand it, Rittel was interested in how we
might deal with things that are on the boundary of what can be explained or
dealt with from a systems point of view.

If one approaches 'problems' from a non-systems view--as many do--then
'wicked problems' can appear quite different.

In the design domain I work in--information design--I routinely come across
phenomena that are humanly constructed rules. As an example, the rules
governing page layouts for information. Many of the rules I deal with have
been developed and refined over centuries of practice. This gives the
impression that they are somehow 'solid' almost like physical laws of
science. But they are not. They are  don't look the sameon 23/3/03 11:17 AM,
Ken Friedman at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Wicked Problems and Other Problems -- Outline Note
>
> --
>
> Copyright ( c ) 2003 by Ken Friedman.
> All rights reserved.
> This text may be quoted and printed freely
> with proper acknowledgment.
>
> --
>
> 35 Wicked problems and other categories of problems
>
> The issue of wicked problems has come up on DRS and PhD-Design for
> several years. Wicked problems are an important category construct in
> design. The nature of wicked problems has not been understood
> adequately by many of the writers who use the term.
>
> Wicked problems are one class among several classes of problems that
> are important in design practice, design research, and design theory.
>
> The major mistake in many articles is the failure to understand that
> many design problems are NOT wicked problems. Of all possible design
> problems, relatively few are wicked problems.
>
> Many wicked problems are design problems. This is particularly true
> of designers who work as policy planners, managers, legislators, and
> other actors whose job is to "[devise] courses of action aimed at
> changing existing situations into preferred ones" (Simon 1982: 129,
> 1998: 112) in organizations and large-scale social context.
>
> There are many classes of design problems. While many wicked problems
> are design problems, it does not follow that ALL design problems are
> wicked problems. Design problems range on a continuum from axiomatic
> and algorithmic problems at the most highly structured end of the
> continuum to wicked problems and recursively linked wicked problems
> on the other. Several other classes of problems are found between the
> two extremes. Each of these classes of problems is effectively
> infinite.
>
> Since new problems are always emerging within any class of problems,
> each class is effectively infinite in size. It is difficult to
> compare infinities. Even so, describing the different classes of
> problems carefully demonstrates that some classes of problems are
> significantly larger than other classes of problems.
>
> Of all design problems in any field or subfield of design, wicked
> problems constitute the smallest class. Much design work is routine
> work. This is why it is easy to delegate so much studio production
> work to junior designers and inexperienced members of a design team.
>
> Wicked problems are not the largest category of design problems.
> Nevertheless, wicked problems are among the most visible problems.
> This is because wicked problems tend to stand out against the
> background of other, less visible problems. This is a natural outcome
> of the fact that wicked problems generally involve many stakeholders.
> In contrast, large classes of problems of the kind known as tame
> problems generally involve relatively restricted issues. Moreover,
> these problems often affect a small group of stakeholders or a single
> client. Some tame problems are so restricted in scope and so simple
> in scale that any solution satisfies nearly everyone involved.
>
> In contrast, many more people have an interest in any wicked problem
> than have an interest in any tame problem. The wickedness of wicked
> problems is partially defined by the competition of interests among
> stakeholders whose interests conflict with the interests of other
> stakeholders in the same problem.
>
> Problems involving public policy, ethics, legislation, economics,
> law, medicine, the environment, and other highly visible problems
> tend to be wicked problems. They stand out precisely because they are
> hard to solve. Moreover, such problems affect many human beings,
> including large aggregations of individuals, families, communities,
> and entire regions or nations as well as groups, agencies, and
> organizations of all kinds.
>
> Relatively few designers work with these kinds of large-scale wicked
> problems, though many designers function in situations where their
> responsibilities may be influenced by wicked problems.
>
> Horst Rittel developed and labeled the concept of the wicked problem
> in the 1960s. The classic article in the literature points is a paper
> by Rittel and Melvin Webber that appeared in Policy Sciences (Horst
> and Webber 1973). This article has been influential in sectors of the
> design field ranging from urban planning and policy studies to
> information science, systems thinking, knowledge management, or
> environmental studies.
>
> In our part of the design field, Dick Buchanan (1992, 1995) wrote the
> seminal introduction to the topic of wicked problems. Buchanan's
> approach was deep and serious. The difficulty with our literature
> since then has been the fact that few of the graphic signers or
> industrial designers to write on wicked problems has examined the
> literature on which Buchanan based his discussion, let alone
> considered the important advances in the decade since Buchanan wrote
> his contribution.
>
> The failure to look beyond that one article is reflected in three
> common approaches to the concept.
>
> One approach offers a brief and unsatisfactory definition of wicked
> problems followed by the assertion that design problems are wicked
> problems.
>
> A second approach does not bother to define wicked problems at all.
> This approach offers the statement that there is such a thing as a
> wicked problem and goes on to claim that design problems are wicked
> problems. These authors seem to believe naming something is the same
> as understanding it.
>
> The third approach traces the concept of wicked problems in design to
> Dick Buchanan with a "what he said!" style of citation. (Some authors
> cite Rittel THROUGH Buchanan without bothering to read Rittel
> himself.)
>
> Design research scholars in other fields have followed Rittel's work.
> While some of these writers work in several sectors, including
> industrial design or graphic design, their writings on this subject
> have not generally appeared in the journals and proceedings of these
> sectors.
>
> As a result, Buchanan's article remains the best piece yet written in
> our sectors of the larger design field. Few authors in our sectors of
> design have bothered to build on Buchanan or to address central
> themes that have been developed in other fields. The most important
> of these themes involves work on how to deal with and address wicked
> problems.
>
> Instead, those who write on wicked problems from a background in
> graphic or industrial design (and from the arts and crafts sectors of
> design) tend to offer a common argument.
>
> The general kind of argument opens by stating three premises.
>
> These are:
>
> 1) There is a class of problem known as a wicked problem.
>
> 2) Wicked problems are intractable by any reasonable or rational technique.
>
> 3) Design problems are wicked problems.
>
> From these premises, the authors generally adduce two or three conclusions.
>
> 1) To solve design problems, designers cannot rely on reason, logic,
> or any standard problem-solving method.
>
> 2) Since designers solve wicked problems without relying on known
> methods, they must rely on some special method known to designers and
> developed in design practice.
>
> 3) If this is how designers solve problems, any form of research or
> theory other than this special system of designerly work is of little
> or no use to the design field.
>
> Of course, this is a simplification. The real argument as stated or
> published takes many forms. In this short outline, I will not address
> or develop the arguments, and I will not take them up to clarify or
> challenge them.
>
> These invalid arguments should not be confused with valid statements
> using related or similar terms. For example, it is sometimes claimed
> that the tacit knowledge developed experientially in design practice
> is the designerly solution to wicked problems. This statement is
> problematic. It is true, however, that designers and professional
> practitioners of all kinds rely on tacit knowledge. This knowledge is
> special to and embedded within practice. Tacit knowledge serves
> practitioners in important ways. In an extended note, I will discuss
> some of the valid arguments that have been inappropriately used to
> support the invalid premises and conclusions stated here concerning
> wicked problems.
>
> In this outline, I will simply say that much of the writing on this
> topic in design lists and design journals has been problematic.
>
> Let us briefly consider the general kinds of problems and their
> attributes. Since this is an outline rather than taxonomy, I will
> state that what follows is not entirely developed. Even though I have
> been struggling with the taxonomy of problems for some time, I have
> not yet achieved a taxonomy that satisfies me.
>
> Even so, it is possible to indicate the kinds of problems that designers meet.
>
> Several categories of design problems are solvable, at least in
> theory. Many are difficult to solve in practice, but this has to do
> more with contingencies than with the nature of the classes of
> problems. These classes of problems are sometimes labeled tame
> problems.
>
> One class of tame problems is the class of axiomatic problems that
> can be solved with logical deduction from axioms and postulates.
> Euclidean geometry involves axiomatic problems. While these problems
> are logical-deductive in nature, many are far from trivial. Einstein
> was convinced of the beauty and importance of classical geometry and
> his own work made great use of later, non-Euclidean geometries.
>
> At the same time, some theoretically tame problems resist easy
> solution. Unsolved axiomatic problems have puzzled mathematicians for
> years, and some have gone unsolved for centuries.
>
> Another class of problems involves algorithmic problems. These
> problems can be solved using clear systems of responses. Many forms
> of algebraic problems are algorithmic.
>
> It should be noted that many such problems are simple at one order of
> complexity and difficult at higher levels of complexity that
> introduce the need for large-scale computation. The computations
> rather than the problems themselves are the challenge.
>
> Some of these problems have surprising and significant importance in
> design. One such problem is the traveling salesman problem. This is a
> problem of selecting the most efficient route between numbers of
> points in a network. This is a central problem in many areas of
> logistics, network planning, systems planning, and transportation
> scheduling. Every advance in the algorithmic management of the
> traveling salesman problem has brought about significant gains with
> reduced costs and grater productivity across all of the many
> industrial sectors that involve logical analysis.
>
> A massive class of problems permits computational solution. These
> problems are genuine and often significant, but they can be solved
> using computers or computer-assisted interfaces. Building the program
> is the designer's work. Once the program is built, the system itself
> can often solve hundreds, even thousands of problems.
>
> Many expert systems now manufacture artifacts to customer
> specification with little or no intervention by a human agent. The
> customer develops a problem statement. The problem statement elicits
> a range of prompts that narrows the range of solutions until the
> customer's problem yields a specific solution. Some of these systems
> use combinatory tactics in ways that permit a single system to create
> millions of semi-customized, articulated solutions.
>
> Today's computer integrated manufacturing environments now generate
> billions of items every years manufactured to millions of patterns
> created -- designed -- by such systems.
>
> At some point in the theory thread, the claim was made that
> logical-deductive systems cannot solve design problems. These three
> classes of design problems and their solutions demonstrate that this
> is not so. Many of these are small, tractable, problems. Aggregated,
> they constitute three huge classes of the design problems that we
> solve every day.
>
> At the next level of complexity, we see problems that yield solutions
> to judgment-driven algorithms. A corporate design program is a case
> in pint, as is a planning code or a building code. Human agents must
> decide among solutions in elation to specific criteria, but these
> decisions are judgmental decisions within a limited range of
> possibilities. Here, too, we see one of the great classes of design
> work. Most design studios (including architecture studios and
> especially graphic design studios) generate an enormous amount of
> their work based on hourly fees charged for the application of
> judgment to essentially algorithmic problems.
>
> At a slightly higher level of complexity, we fine well-defined
> problems. These problems begin to require expertise. The problem is
> well defined, but it may yield several possible solutions. Somewhere
> at the border of the well-defined problem, we find the distinction
> between the apprentice or junior designer and the journeyman or
> senior designer.
>
> At the next level up, we find well-understood problems. These kinds
> of problems involve characteristics and issues that we understand
> well, but they also involve issues or aspects that may not be well
> defined, particularly not is a specific situation. Well-understood
> problems begin to be difficult. Even though we understand the nature
> of the problem, we may not immediately see the solution, not even the
> range of solutions.
>
> Next, we see poorly defined problems. Here we move into genuinely
> difficult territory. Heuristics, iteration, and different forms of
> pluralistic tactics enable us to solve poorly defined problems by
> restating and restating them. The most common range of solutions to a
> poorly define problem is to transform the poorly defined problem into
> a well-understood or well-defined problem. Here, poorly developed
> formal language represents the true difficulty. The expertise of the
> designer comes in redefining the problem in a way that renders it
> tractable.
>
> Finally, we come to wicked problems. Wicked problems offer a number
> pf distinct challenges that are not seen in other classes of
> problems. Nevertheless, the very nature of a wicked problem opens up
> areas of solution within the large, difficult structure of problem
> with multiple variables, constraints, stakeholders, and possible
> iterative changes. Stating the nature of wicked problems and pointing
> to some of the kinds of solutions is a task I will pursue in the
> larger note to follow.
>
> My purpose here has been to address a theme that has come up several
> times in this thread. I want to argue that the term wicked problems
> has been used in an inappropriate way to define all design problems.
> Instead, wicked problems are a specific class of design problem. Of
> all design problems that we solve in the working world, wicked
> problems constitute the smallest of a series of effectively infinite
> classes.
>
> It is the nature of wicked problems to be more visible than other
> problems. This makes wicked problems SEEM more pervasive than other
> kinds of problems. In terms of genuine pervasive spread, consider
> this instead. One company regularly solves a kind problem on one
> product that permits a computer-integrated manufacturing system to
> generate 2.9 million solutions covering a vast range of customer
> needs. The solution takes the form of artifacts that are manufactured
> in millions of units. The system that solves these problems is
> invisible to he end-users of the manufactured artifacts.
>
> It is worth noting that logical-deductive systems also serve a role
> in solving wicker problems. Logic and deduction enable us to rule out
> classes of solutions that would not be satisfactory.
>
> A second, systemic implication of struggling with wicked problems is
> that we slowly move certain kinds and classes of problems from the
> wicked to the poorly defined, from the poorly defined to the well
> understood, and from the well understood to the well defined. Kinds
> of problems that once seemed to be wicked problems have even been
> reduced to algorithmic problems.
>
> It is only through struggling conscientiously with wicked problems
> that we begin to recognize the qualities and characteristics that
> render some kinds of problems intractable while open a solution space
> that allows us to address other problems fruitfully.
>
> One more class of wicked problems is particularly difficult. These
> are recursively linked wicked problems of the kind we meet in
> geopolitics, diplomacy, and international organizations. There are
> other ranges of recursively linked wicked problems. One reference
> book catalogues and describes such problems and even links them. This
> is the Encyclopedia of World Problems (Union of International
> Associations 1994).
>
> Of the many designers I know, only a few dozen operate on problems of
> this sort.
>
> There ARE wicked problems that will remain impervious to general
> solutions for many reasons. A range of very clear characteristics
> identifies these classes of problems, and they embody attributes that
> make them theoretically unavailable to general solutions. One must be
> skilled at analysis and logical deduction to understand why these
> problems are wicked. Simply clapping hands and shouting "Wicked
> problem!" is not good enough.
>
> Laurence Peter, the author whose name was given to the Peter
> Principle, used to speak of problems that are so complex that we must
> be highly intelligent and well informed simply to be undecided about
> them.
>
> That is how it is with wicked problems. Simply knowing that there is
> such as thing as a wicked problem tells us nothing about the nature
> of wicked problems. It tells us nothing about their properties and
> attributes, or their theoretical and practical importance.
>
> I will return to this issue to examine the nature of wicked problems
> and to discuss the kinds of progress we have made in addressing
> wicked problems over the past ten years.
>
> -- Ken Friedman
>
>
> References
>
> Buchanan, Richard. 1992. "Wicked Problems in Design Thinking." Design
> Issues, Vol. 8, No. 2, 5-21.
>
> Buchanan, Richard. 1995. "Wicked Problems in Design Thinking." The
> Idea of Design. A Design Issues Reader. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT
> Press, 3-20.
>
> Rittel, Horst, and Melvin Webber. 1973 "Dilemmas in a General Theory
> of Planning." Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, 155-169.
>
> Simon, Herbert. 1982. The Sciences of the Artificial. Second ed.
> Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
>
> Simon, Herbert. 1998. The Sciences of the Artificial. Third ed.
> Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
>
> Union of International Associations, editors. 1994. Encyclopedia of
> World Problems and Human Potential. Munich: K G Saur.
>
> --
>
> Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
> Department of Leadership and Organization
> Norwegian School of Management
>
> Visiting Professor
> Advanced Research Institute
> School of Art and Design
> Staffordshire University

David

--
Professor David Sless
BA MSc FRSA
Co-Chair Information Design Association
Senior Research Fellow Coventry University
Director
Communication Research Institute of Australia
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