Dear Peter and Terry,

Peter’s comments on wicked problems seem quite apt. Peter wrote, 

—snip—

I depart from Terry in agreeing with the social systems school that
wicked problems are different by definition, have unpredictable patterns
of development, and are impossible to measure for intervention. The very
notion of "problem" is a mental model and not a phenomenon in the world,
and agreement on problem solving must be reached by people with
investment and stake in the actions to be resolved. Wicked problems are
layered "problem systems" that are defined by agreement and not
observation.  Horst Rittel described 10 properties of wicked problems,
and most of them are observations about the impossibility of
conventional solutions (or "design").

—snip—

At the same time, I’d agree with Terry that many problems may be
inappropriately classified as wicked problems.

Many wicked problems contain design problems embedded within them. Not
all design problems are wicked problems, however. 

Nearly all genuine problems in the applied social sciences have wicked
elements. Nevertheless, many aspects of wicked problems have tractable
elements that can be solved using different methods, leaving the wicked
core behind for deeper work. Designers require appropriate training and
education to identify the wicked core, and without appropriate skills,
relatively few designers have the requisite ability to solve such
problems.

Rittel and Webber (1973: 161-166) offer ten criteria that describe the
nature of wicked problems:

“1. There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.

2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.

3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but
good-or-bad.

4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked
problem.

5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a one-shot operation; because
there is little opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt
counts significantly.

6. 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.

7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique.

8. Every wicked problem can be considered a symptom of another
problem.

9. 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.

10. The planner has no right to be wrong.”

Wicked problems have many causes. The wicked quality of the problem may
not be a matter of feedback loops.

Some wicked problems are surprisingly simple yet thoroughly wicked.

Consider the case of three friends who dine together every week and
somehow work out their food preference. Imagine that they dine out
together on an evening when each of the three brings a date with strong
different preferences when none of the new diners is willing to accept
the preference of the others.

This points back to an earlier thread in which Birger argued that
wicked problems do not yield to scientific research. He’s right. Derek
argued that some research traditions give practitioners in appropriate
design fields the ability to work more fruitfully with wicked problems
than designers without a foundation in those fields. He’s right, too.

For me, the most fascinating aspect of the wicked problem has been
finding ways to sort out those aspects of a problem that can be rendered
tame from the core issues that remain wicked.

Yours,

Ken

Reference

Rittel, Horst W. J., and Melvin M. Webber 1973. “Dilemmas in a
General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences 4 (1973), pp. 155-169.

Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
| Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61 3 9214 6078 |
Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design