Ha, Ken.
You mistake my humour for frivolity.
> This obscures the fact that Rittel and Webber put forward a term to describe a serious and problematic situation.
The issue is calling something (anything) a *problem*
But I will consider your comments and write a blog.
David
--
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Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
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On 26 Mar 2014, at 3:41 pm, Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear David,
>
> After reading your piece again (I've read it before), I would say that you are both right and wrong. Technically speaking, each of the statements you make is true and reasonable. But you link them up in a clever polemic to reach a partially unreasonable conclusion.
>
> Rittel and Webber (1973) coined a term to describe a situation that occurs often when human beings plan, and when they try to implement plans in a contested situation. Nearly all planning within organisations is contested — along with many plans in families, and even in dyads such as married couples. The term "wicked problem" does not describe the objective nature of the problem, but the organisational, political, or social context within which human beings interpret, explain, and work with the issues described as a "wicked problem."
>
> Indeed, Rittel and Webber could well have chosen another term entirely. The title of the article is not "wicked problems," but "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning." They could have coined another term, which would be just as useful — and just as potentially problematic.
>
> To say that "there are no wicked problems" is technically correct in one sense. It is inaccurate in another sense. Your article is entertaining because you play on the meanings of the word "wicked," and you make sly jokes in one-liners such as "wicked man" and "wicked suggestion." This obscures the fact that Rittel and Webber put forward a term to describe a serious and problematic situation.
>
> You give the example of global warming as something that is inaccurately described as a "wicked problem." Global warming is not a wicked problem. As you note, it is a fact. The attempted response to that fact constitutes the wicked problem.
>
> Catastrophic climate change is a fact. Rittel and Webber describe some of the reasons that groups of human beings organised as governments, lobby groups, industries, and families are not dealing with catastrophic climate change. It is not catastrophic climate change that is the "wicked problem" as Rittel and Webber describe it. It is the human process of planning and action that constitutes the "wicked problem."
>
> Choose another term if you like. I offered this to Terry as a theory under the terms that Rittel and Webber proposed. While the link to your article offers a good read in a polemical "Letters from Earth" tradition, the concepts are serious.
>
> What I'd rather read would be a discussion of how to address the dilemmas that meet Rittel and Webber’s (1973: 161-166) criteria of the wicked problem. Rittel and Weber describe a kind of problem known as a wicked problem with ten criteria:
>
> “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 no 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 to be 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.”
>
> Choose the term you like. What would help is demonstrating ways to address the kinds problems subject to these ten criteria. Whether or not "there are no wicked problems," some situations demonstrate the attributes that Rittel and Webber describe.
>
> Yours,
>
> Ken
>
> Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | University email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Private email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
>
> Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Adjunct Professor | School of Creative Arts | James Cook University | Townsville, Australia
>
> --
>
> David Sless wrote:
>
> http://communication.org.au/there-are-no-wicked-problems/
>
> --
>
> Reference
>
> Rittel, Horst W J, and Melvin M. Webber. 1973. "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning." Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, (1973), 155-169.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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