Wicked Problems

From Buckingham Shum, S. (1997). "Representing Hard-to-Formalise, Contextualised, Multidisciplinary, Organisational Knowledge". (online paper)

"Wicked problems possess a number of distinctive properties that violate the assumptions that must be made to use the problem solving methods of tame problems. Wicked problems:

cannot be easily defined so that all stakeholders agree on the problem to solve;

require complex judgements about the level of abstraction at which to define the problem;

have no clear stopping rules;

have better or worse solutions, not right and wrong ones;

have no objective measure of success;

require iteration-every trial counts;

have no given alternative solutions-these must be discovered;

often have strong moral, political or professional dimensions."

Another formulation:

"The idea of wicked problems in design was originally proposed by H. J. Rittel and M. M. Webber (1984) in the particular context of social planning. In solving a wicked problem, the solution of one aspect of the problem may reveal another, more complex problem. Rittel and Webber suggested the following rules as those that define the form of a wicked problem:

There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.

Wicked problems have no stopping rule.

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

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

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.

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.

Every wicked problem is essentially unique.

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

The existence of a discrepancy in representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution.

. The planner (designer) has no right to be wrong.

The above taken from:

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/almstrum/classes/cs373/fa99/cs373fa99-e1.html

which is a summary from Rittel, H. J., and M. M. Webber (1984). "Planning problems are wicked problems", In N. Cross (Ed.), Developments in Design Methodology, Wiley, pp. 135-144.

A few definitions from http://www.cc.gatech.edu/edutech/LBD :

In an ill-defined problem the problem it is not clear from the beginning on what the problem is and thus, what a solution is. Thus, finding a solution requires in addition to find out what the real problem is. Solving and specifying the develop in parallel and drive each other.

The solutions are often such that they still could be improved and it is up to the problem solver to decide when enough is enough.

Wicked problems are similar to ill-defined problems, just much worse. Furthermore, solutions are very difficult, if at all, to recognize as such. In other words, stating the problem is the problem.

Links

Origin of the term "Wicked Problems"

Criticism of the "Wicked Problem" formulation

Comments, questions, complaints and compliments: caron@ucar.edu
Last updated: 04/24/00
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