At the same time I have been feeding back the wisdom in Rittel and Webber’s thinking, I have continued to read and think about complexity broadly. The more I read, the more I believe that it is critical that we begin to appreciate the omnipresence of complexity and quickly learn how to deal with it. We have relegated the idea and its ramifications to a curio shop, relying only on “the sciences” to provide us with the knowledge needed to run our individual and collective lives. Real systems thinking must incorporate complexity as the basic way of framing every non-trivial… Read More
Continue ReadingConsumers Drive Change from the Bottom
A few hours after my last post, which ended with a claim that some form of consumer action could achieve changes in the culture that could not be driven from the top, I read a piece that points to a case that supports my point. Umair Haque, in his usual iconoclastic manner, wrote about a recent action that drove the Parliament to rein in the bonuses of bank executives. It certainly was not the US. Indulge me for a paragraph, if you will. Imagine that there was a country in which bailed-out bankers announced extravagant bonuses. OK, that part’s eminently… Read More
Continue ReadingBack to Basics: Wicked Problems (Property 6)
Today’s property from Rittel and Webber follows from the earliest items in the list. **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.** Sophisticated problem-solving algorithms and programs (linear programming, for example) that are used in operations research or decision science will not work. R & W write: There are no criteria which enable one to prove that all solutions to a wicked problem have been identified and considered. . . Chess has a finite set of… Read More
Continue ReadingBeen Away, But Returning Today
I’ve been moving up to Maine, doing computer maintenance, and have been unable to attend to the blog, but I am settled and will continue again. If the Apocalypse came, I missed it. If it did, Heaven looks a lot like Earth.
Continue ReadingBack to Basics: Wicked Problems (Property 5)
Almost half way through the list of 10 properties of wicked problems. The next is **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**. This gets bit tricky as it is not as obvious as many of the other nine. Rittel and Webber say: > In the sciences and in fields like mathematics, chess, puzzle-solving or mechanical engineering design, the problem-solver can try various runs without penalty. . . A lost chess game is seldom consequential for other chess games or for non-chess-players. . .… Read More
Continue ReadingBack to Basics: Wicked Problems (Property 4)
The next property in the list of ten is: **4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem**. This property follows from the general characteristics of complexity. These systems include many interlinked feedback loops and delays. Any designed perturbation must work its way through the system, a process which may take a significant time to show up. Rittel and Webber say, > With wicked problems . . . after being implemented, will generate waves of consequences over an extended–virtually an unbounded–period of time. Moreover, the next day’s consequences of the solution may yield… Read More
Continue ReadingBack to Basics: Wicked Problems (Property 3)
Continuing the discussion of Rittel and Webber’s article about wicked problems, the third property is 3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad. This follows directly from property 1 which argues that there is no definite way of formulating a wicked problem. If we cannot reduce a wicked problem to a set of analytic relationships, then there is no way of testing the truth of the solution. R & W say: > For wicked planning problems, there are no true or false answers. Normally, many parties are equally equipped, interested, and/or entitled to judge the solutions, although none… Read More
Continue ReadingBack to Basics: Wicked Problems (Properties 1 & 2)
This is my first post as an octogenarian; my birthday was yesterday. It doesn’t seem much different today. The world out there is in just as bad shape. My last post was an introduction to the idea of wicked problems. Here’s the next installment. Rittel and Webber list 10 properties of this class of problems. I’ll take a few at a time. It’s important to make a connection between their discussion and complexity. With just a small adjustment, their characterization fits any attempt to govern or guide a complex system. The “problem” to be addressed is usually a difference in… Read More
Continue ReadingBack to Basics 7: Complexity and Wicked Problems
The new trimester at Marlboro College Graduate Center started this week. I am doing my course on (sustainable?) consumption for the second time and giving another for the first time. This one is designed to tie together the four earlier courses in he Exploring Sustainability sequence and carries the subtitle: Ideas into Action. Preparing and teaching a course always refreshes old ideas and brings new ones to expand what I already have gotten familiar with. I always reread the assignments I give the students and this blog post and others to come arise from this practice. The introductory reading is… Read More
Continue ReadingSorry for the Absence
I’ve been out of touch for a few days and will be back in a day or two.
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