[projectvrm] Wicked problems vs. tame ones

[Doc Searls < >]

The quoted passage below showed up in another list. It looked to me like it 
might be relevant to VRM, so I'm sharing it.

Here is the original: 
<http://www.uctc.net/mwebber/Rittel+Webber+Dilemmas+General_Theory_of_Planning.pdf>

While the excerpt below lays out what "wicked" problems are, what intrigues 
me is that it poses them against "tame" ones.

I think the problem of customer captivity is not the captivity itself, but 
the valuing of it — and the normative nature of value systems, even when 
those systems later fall into discredit and abandonment. And I think my 
problem with marketing-framed answers to the questions raised by VRM 
ambitions is that they strike me — in the context posed by this piece — as 
tame. I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean it in the sense that 
marketing is a mature, deep and well-understood field. What VRM poses is the 
idea of free customers, which marketing on the whole doesn't care a lot about 
or would rather not see. (Perhaps Graham can correct me on that, or shed more 
light on the matter.) In any case, marketing is a corporate practice, and VRM 
is about personal ones. Today we have a limited box of tools at customers' 
disposal. VRM seeks to add more tools to that box.

I suggest that liberating customers from systems that value holding them 
captive is the core challenge of VRM. There are other challenges in the shaft 
behind that arrowhead, such as making VRM work. But liberation is key. I 
think doing that is a wicked problem.

Einstein said (or is said to have said — it's not clear), "You cannot solve a 
problem with the same level of thinking that created it." I suggest that a 
corollary might be, "Wicked problems are ones that cannot be solved from any 
level place," meaning any tame (mature, well-understood) place.

Obviously, those places don't go away. Newton's proven theories did not cease 
to apply when those of relativity theory and quantum mechanics came along. 
But the thinking that yielded the latter was not Newtonian. It was different. 
Einstein credited "the gift of fantasy" for his own insights.

Anyway, those are some digressive thoughts on a Sunday morning. I'd tighten 
them up if we didn't have guests. But we do, so there ya go.

Doc



> Excerpted from:
> Rittel, H., & Webber, M. (1973). “Dilemmas in a General Theory of 
> Planning,” Policy Sciences, 4, 155-169.
>  
> Wicked Problems
> According to Rittel and Webber, wicked problems have 10 characteristics:
>       • Wicked problems have no definitive formulation. Formulating the 
> problem and the solution is essentially the same task. Each attempt at 
> creating a solution changes your understanding of the problem.
>       • Wicked problems have no stopping rule. Since you can't define the 
> problem in any single way, it's difficult to tell when it's resolved. The 
> problem-solving process ends when resources are depleted, stakeholders lose 
> interest or political realities change.
>       • Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but 
> good-or-bad. Since there are no unambiguous criteria for deciding if the 
> problem is resolved, getting all stakeholders to agree that a resolution is 
> "good enough" can be a challenge, but getting to a “good enough” resolution 
> may be the best we can do.
>       • There is no immediate or ultimate test of a solution to a wicked 
> problem. Since there is no singular description of a wicked problem, and 
> since the very act of intervention has at least the potential to change 
> that which we deem to be “the problem,” there is no one way to test the 
> success of the proposed resolution.
>       • Every implemented solution to a wicked problem has consequences. 
> Solutions to such problems generate waves of consequences, and it's 
> impossible to know, in advance and completely, how these waves will 
> eventually play out.
>       • Wicked problems don't have a well-described set of potential 
> solutions. Various stakeholders have differing views of acceptable 
> solutions. It's a matter of judgment as to when enough potential solutions 
> have emerged and which should be pursued.
>       • Each wicked problem is essentially unique. There are no "classes" 
> of solutions that can be applied, a priori, to a specific case. "Part of 
> the art of dealing with wicked problems is the art of not knowing too early 
> what type of solution to apply."
>       • Each wicked problem can be considered a symptom of another problem. 
> A wicked problem is a set of interlocking issues and constraints that 
> change over time, embedded in a dynamic social context. But, more 
> importantly, each proposed resolution of a particular description of “a 
> problem” should be expected to generate its own set of unique problems.
>       • The causes of a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. 
> There are many stakeholders who will have various and changing ideas about 
> what might be a problem, what might be causing it and how to resolve it. 
> There is no way to sort these different explanations into sets of 
> “correct/incorrect.”
>       • The planner (designer) has no right to be wrong. Scientists are 
> expected to formulate hypotheses, which may or may not be supportable by 
> evidence. Designers don't have such a luxury—they're expected to get things 
> right. People get hurt, when planners are “wrong.” Yet, there will always 
> be some condition under which planners will be wrong.
> 
>