Dear Chris and Klaus,

Klaus's comments make sense to me. The term "wicked problem" works
well as Rittel defines it. The issue as I see it is not that "tame
problems" are ideal, but rather that mny aspects of supposedly wicked
problems are not in reality wicked. In a long-ago conference at
Politechnico di Milano, I recall Ezio Manzini proposing that many
kinds of design problems in industry could be solved by off-the-shelf
components that we might configure in different kinds of systems,
allowing us to save time and money, increase sustainability, and
encourage recycling.

This systemic approach implies that we distinguish between classes of
problems - and it suggests that from time to time, we do seek ways to
tame parts of the wicked. I'd argue, further, that some problems that
seem wicked are only wicked because we know too little. Some problems
are inherently wicked: Rittle's criteria distinguishes those. Even
simple wicked problems may always be wicked because they involve
preferences and choices among people with differing desires, tastes,
and wants. Such simple yet wicked problems involve questions like:
What shall we eat for dinner? Which movie shall we watch?

But some problems are tame and other problems can be tamed. In some
cases, taming a problem is the ideal -- the art of judgement rests in
knowing when we should look at a problem new and fresh, and when we
should accept an algorithmic solution.

One thing Chris wrote last week got me to thinking. I tend to
disagree with Chris on the idea that  wicked vs. tame problems
distinguish design from engineering. There are many examples of tame
design problems. A typographer who prepares a simple page layout to
the standards of a design manual practices design rather than
engineering. Physicians practice medicine when they solve effectively
tame problems -- aspirin for a minor ailment, cough syrup for a cold.
To me, it is implicit in the art of diagnosis that some problems will
be tame and others difficult, even wicked. Even tame problems require
judgement and expertise. Design studios do not send tame problems to
engineers. The senior designers give them to the younger designers
with some instructions and, depending on the nature of the problem, a
degree of latitude in solving them, wide or narrow according to the
judgement of the senior designer.

For many working designers, taming problems is not merely ideal -- it
is necessary. The greatest percentage of profit in the work of many
design studios comes from routine production work once the real
problems have been solved. This is especially the case in graphic
design and architecture, That's how studios make a living and keep
the staff employed, especially when they must often use surplus funds
to work on the deeper aspects of wicked design problems. These often
cost so much to examine and solve that a designer uses far more than
the client can pay. The production work that follows permits
designers to spend more hours on a project than the client may
actually pay for.

I'd argue that routine studio work on tame problems involves the
exercise of simple craft skills along with expert design judgement.
Nevertheless, much applied design takes place after the problems have
been tamed, and I'd argue that this is not engineering but design.

Most of these definitions function in a gray zone: the nature of
design work (and the nature of engineering at different levels) often
requires us to exercise all these kinds of approaches. My view on the
virtue of using Rittel's definition is that it helps us to sort out
different aspects of what it is that makes a problem wicked. Without
arguing that tame problems are the ideal, I do argue that designers
seek to tame problems as much as engineers do. If they did not, they
could not run a studio and earn a living.

Where Chris and Klaus and I probably all agree is that dealing with
wicked problems is much more fun than dealing with tame problems. I
don't run a studio and I don't want to. If I had ten or twenty
employees -- as some of my friends do -- I would have to tame
problems and work on routine design applications to pay the rent, the
salaries, the various taxes and pension contributions, and so on. In
contrast, professors get paid to think. We make just as much (or as
little) solving the problems that interest us. Academic freedom means
that we can work with wicked problems all we like -- even when we
cannot solve them. My friends who run studios don't have that luxury.

Warm wishes,

Ken


--

Klaus Krippendorff wrote:

it might be useful to use the word wicked and tame in rittel's sense
-- until someone proposes a better definition.

saying that the problem posed by wicked problem is to tame them
assumes that tame problems are the ideal case. rittel defined
wickednes by its untameability, calling for different methods

--

Chris Rust wrote:

Ken's right that designers have to deal with tame problems, but
whether they involve making sure your pencil is sharp or calculating
the optimum "design" for a conventional structure, I don't believe
that such routine and predictable tasks are a part of designing, any
more than washing up, however necessary, is part of the art of a chef.

This brings us back to an old chestnut that we have tussled over
before and I'd like to have a go at resolving it. It's to do with the
difference between designers and engineers, or rather between
designing and engineering. I'll start by saying that I was quite
surprised, many years ago, when I gave a lecture to a group of
engineering students, to find that they had come to the view that
"designing" was low-grade employment compared to what they referred
to as "development". I realise now that their development was close
to Lauchlan's designing and their view of designing was the solving
of routinised mathematical problems.

Since then I have discovered wicked problems and I think I now take a
very simple view which is this: Designing is essentially the business
of resolving problems that cannot be tamed, Engineering is the
business of taming problems that have become tameable, at least for
the time being and within some limits.

So there are two quite different and equally difficult arts and, I
suspect, two different temperaments at work. Of course there is no
strict demarcation, people who are designers by instinct will still
tame a problem if it suits them, a natural born engineer will not be
averse to wrestling with a wicked (untameable) problem if one comes
their way. But the tendency of the engineer is to fix things down and
hope they will stay fixed, the designer will be fascinated by the
problems that refuse to stay fixed. Maybe it's as simple as some
people like rules and others don't.

--

--

Prof. Ken Friedman
Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language
Norwegian School of Management
Oslo

Center for Design Research
Denmark's Design School
Copenhagen

+47 46.41.06.76    Tlf NSM
+47 33.40.10.95    Tlf Privat

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