Hi, Terry,

Even though you’ve changed your earlier note to suggest that the titles I offered on wicked problems are classics “seen from within Art and Design fields,” I still disagree. I’ve never come across this literature in relation to art programs.

People in several design fields see these texts – and others – as classics on the topic of wicked problems. These books and articles are used across a wide range of fields, including HCI, computing, informatics, information science, knowledge management, strategic planning, architecture, economics, urban planning, regional planning, traffic management, medicine, public health, environmental science, operations management, logistics, systems planning, systems analysis, and more, along with disciplines linked to these fields, including philosophy and sociology. These professions are design fields as Herbert Simon defines them.

The texts are openings to inquiry on a difficult issue that is by nature problematic. It’s quite reasonable that one finds problematic issues in generally useful contributions. That's the nature of conceptual growth and theory development in every field. These nevertheless remain seminal texts on wicked problems in every field that works with the issue.

Let’s review the history of this conversation. It began with a request for sources on designthinking in what is now another thread. One list member posted the Rittel and Webber article on wicked problems. Rather than accept it as one potentiallyuseful article among many, you challenged that specific article, stating: “Theproblem is that Rittel and Weber’s paper contains many fundamental mistakes and false conclusions as I’ve documented elsewhere.” You linked your text. I read the text. In my view, at least, you did not document “fundamental mistakes and false conclusions,” but merely gave your opinion on Rittel and Weber.

In the course of the conversation, I put forward a small, selected bibliography on wicked problems by key authors from a dozen or so fields. You believe that these texts are seen as classics in the art and design fields, representing what you earlier labeled “the art and design perspective.” My view is that these texts are used and respected in most fields that address these issues. As professions, these are design fields in Herbert Simon’s definition, but not “art and design fields.” You’ve described these texts and their impact inaccurately, and you haven’t yet documented your claims on Rittel and Webber.

Instead, you posted links that supposedly demonstrate a contradictory case by example without explaining what these examples are or how you specifically use these examples to contradict the view of wicked problems you ascribe to the authors of the works posted here. None of the linked texts seems to address wicked problems, nor do any seem to demonstrate that “Rittel and Weber’s paper contains many fundamental mistakes and false conclusions.” Since you claim that these offer contradiction by example, I’d rather read your argument than read a dozen or linked articles to find they don’t add up. If you’ve an argument to make, please put it forward.

I’m proposing a subtle relationship to the issues of solution and tractability in wicked problems. I stated that we can’t “solve” wicked problems. That is among the criteria that make a wicked problem “wicked.” Nevertheless, there are ways to address the class of problems known as wicked problems, to “dissolve” them or to reduce them to partially tractable problems. With respect to this range of problems, Rittel’s articles and the Rittel and Webber article remain quite useful.

The treatment of wicked problems across the literatures of the fields concerned with wicked problems is sometimes problematic. Along with problematic treatments, we see robust work. I'd argue that the texts in my bibliography represent useful contributions and robust thinking.

It is also my view that you did not understand why the toy model I proposed was a model, in the genuine sense of the word. It was a model because it reflects Rittel’s ten criteria on modest scale.

This thread suggests to me that it may be time to review the literature on wicked problems and to write something from a contemporary perspective based on current understandings. This won’t be a post to the list, but a journal article.

Your comments on Rittel and Webber startled me. So did your claim that “Rittel and Weber’s paper contains many fundamental mistakes and false conclusions as I’ve documented elsewhere.” When I read the document, I decided to pose an alternate view.

At this point, an alternate view is as much as I can usefully put forward here. I have notdocumented the validity or usefulness of Rittel and Webber, or the texts in the bibliography. I did not intend to do so. What I have documented is that these texts emerge from a dozen or so fields. While some of the authors are in design fields, none are in “art and design” as contrasted with the technical and scientific design fields. These texts have impact in the authors’ homes fields and in a wide variety of fields and disciplines of design and the design sciences. I have not documented the wide impact of these articles – that’s too much to do in a short list conversation, but a quick Google School search on Horst Rittel will quickly demonstrate that this is the case – along with links to key Rittel papers in PDF format.

If others wish to comment on wicked problems, I will read the notes with interest. I’m going to withdraw from the thread on wicked problems at this point.

Ken

Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Phone +61 3 9214 6102 | http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design




-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list  <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------