The Inconquerability Of Wicked Problems

June 29, 2012

Atul Gawande recalls the work of social scientists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber from 1973, in a passage worth quoting at length:

[Rittel and Webber] defined a class of problems they called “wicked problems.” Wicked problems are messy, ill-defined, more complex than we fully grasp, and open to multiple interpretations based on one’s point of view. They are problems such as poverty, obesity, where to put a new highway—or how to make sure that people have adequate health care.

They are the opposite of “tame problems,” which can be crisply defined, completely understood, and fixed through technical solutions. Tame problems are not necessarily simple—they include putting a man on the moon or devising a cure for diabetes. They are, however, solvable. Solutions to tame problems either work or they don’t.

Solutions to wicked problems, by contrast, are only better or worse. Trade-offs are unavoidable. Unanticipated complications and benefits are both common. And opportunities to learn by trial and error are limited. You can’t try a new highway over here and over there; you put it where you put it. But new issues will arise. Adjustments will be required. No solution to a wicked problem is ever permanent or wholly satisfying, which leaves every solution open to easy polemical attack.

This is an excellent explanation of the challenges of crafting public policy. In the political realm, we often do not deal simply with question of “correct” or “incorrect” policy decisions. Rather, we attempt to craft policies that represent some approximation of the nexus between ideas that have popular, democratic support, and ideas that will result in the greatest increase in welfare. This is further complicated by the fact that we all tend to disagree on what exactly the definition of each of these terms is. The pot is brought to the proverbial boil when that process is engaged to solve a “wicked” problem of the type described by Rittel and Webber, and it largely explains why it takes so long to address many of the most important questions that face any given society; or why the majority-accepted answers to those questions evolve over time.

9:45pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxOOWt5Y

(Notes: 36)