what is wicked problem solving

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What Are Wicked Problems and How Might We Solve Them?

Have you ever come across a problem so complex that you struggled to know where to start? Then you might have stumbled upon a wicked problem. While wicked problems may not have a definite solution, there are certainly things you can do to mitigate any negative effects. When you learn how to tackle wicked problems, you learn how to improve the world and the lives of the people who live in it. Here, you’ll learn the ten characteristics of a wicked problem and five steps to tackle wicked problems.

What Is a Wicked Problem?

A wicked problem is a social or cultural problem that’s difficult or impossible to solve because of its complex and interconnected nature. Wicked problems lack clarity in both their aims and solutions, and are subject to real-world constraints which hinder risk-free attempts to find a solution.

Classic examples of wicked problems are these:

Climate change

Homelessness

Sustainability

What is the Difference between Puzzles, Problems and Wicked Problems?

Let’s create an overview by first looking into the difference between a puzzle and a problem, and then afterwards we’ll examine wicked problems.

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Which Wicked Problems Do We Need to Deal with?

Many of the design problems we face are wicked problems, where clarifying the problem is often as big a task as solving it… or perhaps even bigger. Wicked problems are problems with many interdependent factors making them seem impossible to solve as there is no definitive formula for a wicked problem.

A wicked problem is often a social or cultural problem. For example, how would you try to solve global issues such as poverty… or education? What about climate change, and access to clean drinking water? It’s hard to know where to begin, right? That’s because they’re all wicked problems.

What makes them even worse is the way they’re intertwined with one another. If you try to address an element of one problem, you’ll likely cause unexpected consequences in another. No wonder they’re wicked! It’s clear to see that standard problem-solving techniques just aren’t going to cut it when you’ve got a wicked problem on your hands.

You’ll need to gain a much deeper insight into the people involved and learn how to reframe the problem entirely if you want to have any sort of chance at coming up with a valuable solution.

10 Characteristics of a Wicked Problem

As you can see, we need to dig deeper to understand the essence of wicked problems. Horst W.J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber, professors of design and urban planning at the University of California at Berkeley, first coined the term wicked problem in “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning” (1973). In the paper, they detail ten important characteristics that describe a wicked problem:

There is no definitive formula for a wicked problem.

Wicked problems have no stopping rule—there’s no way to know whether your solution is final.

Solutions to wicked problems are not true or false (right or wrong); they can only be good or bad.

You cannot immediately test 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 a set number of potential solutions.

Every wicked problem is essentially unique.

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

There is always more than one explanation for a wicked problem because the explanations vary greatly depending on the individual’s perspective.

The planner/designer has no right to be wrong and must be fully responsible for their actions.

We still face the classic wicked problems in today’s world; however, there are further examples we now have to consider. Business strategy, for example, is now often classed as a wicked problem because strategy-related issues normally meet at least five of the characteristics listed above.

From Wicked Problems to Complex Socio-Technical Systems

The rapid technological advancement of the 21st century has, in many ways, mutated wicked problems. In today’s hyperconnected world, it is difficult to look at problems in isolation.

Let’s look at sustainability, for example. Recycling is often considered as one of the solutions to achieve sustainability. Don Norman , in his two-part essay for FastCompany , examined recycling and remarked: “I am an expert on complex design systems . Even I can’t figure out recycling.”

He describes in detail how difficult it is for people to send their household waste to get recycled. There are different rules for different materials—paper, plastics, glass, metals. And within a category, say, plastic, there are different rules for different types of plastic in different places. Not all plastics can be recycled. Those that can be recycled, demand specialized equipment and processes that are not universally available.

“Recycling is a poor solution to the wrong problem.” — Don Norman

The complexity of recycling is a problem. But why do we need to recycle at all?

It's because most of the products we use in our lives are made from non-reusable materials. Consider smartphones—most, if not all, have batteries that cannot be separated from the device. If your battery no longer functions as intended, you must replace it with a new phone.

What if the iPhone had a removable battery, which could be fixed or replaced so that you didn’t have to throw out the entire phone, if (when) the battery died? What if phones weren’t built to crack or become obsolete within a short time?

What if companies considered alternate materials to manufacture phones, or government legislation made it mandatory for companies to take back all their material, and put them back into the manufacturing process? The piles of garbage on the planet are a part of what Don Norman calls complex socio-technical systems . Let’s hear more on this from Don Norman:

Wicked problems, or as Don Norman prefers to call them, complex socio-technical systems , are not isolated. They are intertwined in existing systems—manufacturing systems and economic systems, political, social and cultural systems, technological and legal systems. And each of those systems is connected with the other.

So, how can you start to tackle wicked problems, both old and new? Let’s look at how design thinking —more specifically, systems thinking and agile methodology —can help us start to untangle the web of a complex socio-technical system.

Wicked Problems and Design Thinking

The design theorist and academic Richard Buchanan connected design thinking to the innovation necessary to begin tackling wicked problems. Originally used in the context of social planning, the term “wicked problems” had been popularized in the paper “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking” (1992) by Buchanan. Various thought leaders following Buchanan continued on to suggest we utilize systems thinking when faced with complex design problems, but what does that look like in practice for a designer tackling a wicked problem and how can we integrate it with a collaborative agile methodology ?

A Combination of Systems Thinking and Agile Methodology Can Help You Tackle Wicked Problems

Design thinkers proceeded to highlight how we utilize systems thinking when faced with complex design problems.

Systems thinking is the process of understanding how components of a system influence each other as well as other systems—and therefore it’s pretty much perfect for wicked problems!

And it’s even better when combined with an agile methodology , an iterative approach to design and product development. Agile methodology helps to improve solutions through collaboration . This agile, collaborative environment breeds the ability to be efficient and effectively meet the stakeholders ’ changing requirements.

Together, systems thinking and agile methodology lead us to a better solution at each iteration as they both evolve with the wicked problem.

In an agile methodology, every iteration incorporates feedback from the previous release. This process can help you tackle wicked problems when it’s combined with systems thinking.

© Daniel Skrok and the Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

5 Ways to Apply Systems Thinking and Agile Methodology in Your Work

If you’ve been faced with a wicked problem in the past, you’ll have undoubtedly experienced frustration from not knowing where or how to begin. There’s no shame in that—issues which are difficult or nearly impossible to solve will do that to a person! The next time you and your team must tackle a wicked problem, you can use these five handy methods which are based on systems thinking and agile methodology:

1. Break down information into nodes and links.

You can utilize systems thinking if you break the information down into nodes (chunks of information such as objects, people or concepts) and links (the connections and relationships between the nodes). This will make your private mental models (your representations of external reality) visible to the outside world and help you face wicked problems more effectively. Jay Wright Forrester, a pioneer in computer engineering and systems science, put it nicely when he said:

"The image of the world around us, which we carry in our head, is just a model. Nobody in his head imagines all the world, government or country. He has only selected concepts, and relationships between them, and uses those to represent the real system.” —Jay Wright Forrester

In this illustration , the nodes are circled in red and the links are the red lines drawn between the nodes. All four illustrations are systems models that participants created from Tom Wujec’s workshops on collaborative visualization and systems thinking.

© Tom Wujec, CC BY 3.0

2. Visualize the information.

When you sketch out and place information into a physical space, it will help both you and your team take in and understand the systems at hand—as well as the relationships within and between them.

3. Collaborate and include stakeholders in the process.

Share your mental models to help other people build on your ideas, and vice versa. Your team can synthesize several points of view when you create physical drawings and group notes to produce different systems models.

4. Release solutions quickly to gather continuous feedback.

Feedback of success helps to solve problems which we don’t have one single obviously correct answer for. The more feedback you gather from your users and stakeholders, the more guidance you’ll have to get to the next step.

5. Carry out multiple iterations.

You and your team have the chance to utilize feedback at each iteration. The more iterations you do, the more likely you’ll determine what changes are needed to further improve the solution to your wicked problem.

You’ll build a bridge between the existing solution and the next iteration when you combine user and stakeholder feedback with your team’s thoughts and ideas.

© Un-School MX, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The Take Away

As designers, we have the responsibility to generate the best solution possible even when the wicked problem itself is indeterminate and the best solution does not yet exist. A combination of systems thinking and agile methodology can help us tackle these wicked problems. It encourages us to utilize these practices and share them with others so that we can, together, get to the next iteration of the design process .

When you start to tackle wicked problems, you can start to improve the world and the lives of the people who live in it. As a reminder, the five steps to do this are:

Break down information into nodes and links.

Visualize the information.

Collaborate and include stakeholders in the process.

Release solutions quickly and gather continuous feedback.

Carry out multiple iterations.

References & Where To Learn More

Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy sciences , 4(2), 155-169.

Buchanan, Richard. (1992). Wicked Problems in Design Thinking. Design Issues , Vol. 8, No. 2, (Spring, 1992), 5-21.

Ana de Almeida Kumlien & Paul Coughlan, Wicked problems and how to solve them , 2018.

John C. Camillus, Strategy as a Wicked Problem , 2006.

Amy C. Edmundson, Wicked-Problem Solvers , 2016.

John Kolko, Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving , 2012.

Stony Brook University, What’s a Wicked Problem?

Tom Wujec, TEDGlobal, Got a wicked problem? First, tell me how you make toast , 2013:

Hero Image: © Diana Parkhouse, Unsplash License.

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Wicked problems and how to solve them

Research Fellow in Innovation, Networking and Learning in the Water Industry, Trinity College Dublin

Professor in Operations Management, Trinity College Dublin

Disclosure statement

This study is part funded by the ERDF Interreg Ireland-Wales programme 2014-2020 through the Dŵr Uisce project. Dŵr Uisce is led by Prof. Aonghus Mc Nabola (Trinity College Dublin), Prof. Paul Coughlan (Trinity College Dublin) and Prof. Prysor Williams (Bangor University).

Paul Coughlan is Professor in Operations Management at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin. He receives research funding from the Ireland-Wales Co-operation Programme 2014-2020.

Trinity College Dublin provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Wicked problems are issues so complex and dependent on so many factors that it is hard to grasp what exactly the problem is, or how to tackle it. Wicked problems are like a tangled mess of thread – it’s difficult to know which to pull first. Increasing antibiotic resistance , security of food and energy supply, increasing global warming and wars can all be classed as wicked problems.

Since its first definition in 1973, many authors have associated the term “wicked” with water problems, which we research. Old water networks, bursting pipes, leakages, hosepipe bans – keeping the water supply running is a daily concern all over the world.

This shouldn’t be surprising – even in places where water seems abundant, small changes in rainfall patterns can affect local supply. For example, this summer in Ireland, there were less than sufficient levels of rainfall. The dry spell only could be compared to the one experienced by the country in 1976.

As a result, the country’s water reservoirs fell to such low levels that water authorities issued warnings of an imminent crisis . As in other places around the globe, the problem in Ireland is linked to multiple factors. These include the drier than expected summer, increased water demand, water leakage – nearly 50% – and a chronic underinvestment in renewing local water distribution systems. Meanwhile, the water treatment industry is the fourth most energy-intensive industry in the UK.

Pumping money into researching water technology is not the answer here. Yes, we all know that research underpins new technologies, and that a common cycle of research and development happens in universities. Researchers identify a problem, compete for funding and go about finding a solution. But from there, many factors get in the way of applying research to wicked problems in practice. There’s a lack of appropriate guidance and incentive to researchers in how to apply research. Fixed mindsets push academics towards publishing, instead of making a contribution to business or society. Meanwhile, laboratory prototypes rarely reach real world end users.

New technology research and development alone do not solve wicked problems. But, combined with implementation in practice, there is a chance.

• Interdisciplinary research

Wicked problems are complex and demand the input of multiple academic disciplines with relevant practical expertise. The key, then, is enabling these disparate experts to work together. Interdisciplinary research is an essential aspect of recent EU and UK policies that create an environment for innovation in thinking about wicked problems.

We are currently engaged in a project on water supply, where engineering, environmental, geography and management researchers work together with a network of industry and water authorities. While the engineers, geographers and environmental scientists develop and progress the field trials of new technology, the management researchers bring the right people together to ensure adoption becomes reality. They facilitate learning in action by the network through critical reflection on the process of decision making, understanding the motivations and overcoming the barriers facing water authorities, users and industry.

Collaboration is key

But interdisciplinary research alone is not sufficient to deal with wicked problems. In order to make a dent in the global water and energy problem, and indeed any other wicked problem, researchers need to step out of the lab and work side-by-side with industry, local communities, decision-makers and legislators. Only by doing so will technology adoption be possible.

Early-adopters are critical. If early adoption works properly, researchers can learn from practice and amend the design. Insights gained can be shared initially within a specialised group put together to exploit the opportunities and overcome the barriers. Industry members, policy-makers , users, practitioners, and other researchers, should then collaborate to share their evolving understanding of the wicked problem.

As children we understand “show-and-tell”. This works in the case of wicked problems, too. One way to speed up technology adoption is through demonstration, a concept broadly explored by industry and slightly less so by researchers. Demonstration sites are like an open air lab, where practitioners and researchers interact, question and co-create.

In the physical space, the “demonstrator” shows-and-tells a new technology to early-adopters. Demonstration sites have been a feature in long-term eco-hydrology initiatives by UNESCO to work with and teach local communities to be more resilient, healthy and sustainable. Such sites have the potential also to apply new research effectively by showing savings, advantages and obstacles to be overcome.

Our wicked problem water and energy project, for example, features three demonstration sites . The first recovers energy from the water distribution network in a small Irish rural community for use in its water treatment plant. The second is in Tŷ Mawr Wybrnant a National Trust property in Wales using micro-hydropower to run this national monument. The third demonstrator is at Penrhyn Castle , owned by the National Trust in Wales , and recovers heat from kitchen wastewater.

So, to make the wicked problems less wicked, researchers need to work across disciplines, to collaborate with end-users and to show-and-tell in demonstration sites. The idea is to ensure that what is developed in the lab “sees daylight”, something that is critical to address many such a wicked problem.

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What is a Wicked Problem?

CHRISTIAN SARKAR & PHILIP KOTLER

To begin, here’s the article which introduced the world to the concept of “wicked problems” >>  Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning  by  Horst W.J. Rittel  and  Melvin M. Webber . 

In it, we learn about the  10 properties 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 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  representing a wicked problem can be  explained in numerous ways .
• The planner has  no right to be wrong .

 What does Wicked represent?

It’s important to note that while a wicked problem refers to an idea or problem that cannot be fixed, where there is no single solution to the problem, the term “wicked” denotes resistance to resolution , rather than evil . One can argue this point by stating that the resistance to resolution of a wicked problem, in the face of widespread suffering, is evil.

Instead of getting into a finger pointing game, though, we’re interested in solutions. Wicked problems have virtuous solutions.

Examples of Wicked Problems

Wikipedia tells us that a problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindsets and behavior is likely to be a wicked problem. These include global climate change , natural hazards ,  healthcare , the  AIDS epidemic ,  pandemic influenza , international drug trafficking, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, waste and  social injustice.

What is the Wicked Seven?

We decided that one of the main reasons that wicked problems aren’t being addressed is because when we try to solve them individually, the boundaries we draw to frame the problem are reductive – they reduce and diminish the scope of the true underlying causes.

That’s why we chose to look at seven wicked problems at once . We included corruption as a wicked problem, because it turns out to be a primary reason why things don’t change for the better.

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Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving

The following is an excerpt from the book.

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By Jon Kolko Mar. 6, 2012

171 pages, Austin Center for Design, 2012

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A wicked problem is a social or cultural problem that is difficult or impossible to solve for as many as four reasons: incomplete or contradictory knowledge, the number of people and opinions involved, the large economic burden, and the interconnected nature of these problems with other problems. Poverty is linked with education, nutrition with poverty, the economy with nutrition, and so on. These problems are typically offloaded to policy makers, or are written off as being too cumbersome to handle en masse. Yet these are the problems—poverty, sustainability, equality, and health and wellness—that plague our cities and our world and that touch each and every one of us. These problems can be mitigated through the process of design, which is an intellectual approach that emphasizes empathy, abductive reasoning, and rapid prototyping.

Horst Rittel, one of the first to formalize a theory of wicked problems, cites ten characteristics of these complicated social issues:

• Wicked problems have no definitive formulation. The problem of poverty in Texas is grossly similar but discretely different from poverty in Nairobi, so no practical characteristics describe “poverty.”
• It’s hard, maybe impossible, to measure or claim success with wicked problems because they bleed into one another, unlike the boundaries of traditional design problems that can be articulated or defined.
• Solutions to wicked problems can be only good or bad, not true or false. There is no idealized end state to arrive at, and so approaches to wicked problems should be tractable ways to improve a situation rather than solve it.
• There is no template to follow when tackling a wicked problem, although history may provide a guide. Teams that approach wicked problems must literally make things up as they go along.
• There is always more than one explanation for a wicked problem, with the appropriateness of the explanation depending greatly on the individual perspective of the designer.
• Every wicked problem is a symptom of another problem. The interconnected quality of socio-economic political systems illustrates how, for example, a change in education will cause new behavior in nutrition.
• No mitigation strategy for a wicked problem has a definitive scientific test because humans invented wicked problems and science exists to understand natural phenomena.
• Offering a “solution” to a wicked problem frequently is a “one shot” design effort because a significant intervention changes the design space enough to minimize the ability for trial and error.
• Every wicked problem is unique.
• Designers attempting to address a wicked problem must be fully responsible for their actions. 1

Based on these characteristics, not all hard-to-solve problems are wicked, only those with an indeterminate scope and scale. So most social problems—such as inequality, political instability, death, disease, or famine— are wicked. They can’t be “fixed.” But because of the role of design in developing infrastructure, designers can play a central role in mitigating the negative consequences of wicked problems and positioning the broad trajectory of culture in new and more desirable directions. This mitigation is not an easy, quick, or solitary exercise. While traditional circles of entrepreneurship focus on speed and agility, designing for impact is about staying the course through methodical, rigorous iteration. Due to the system qualities of these large problems, knowledge of science, economics, statistics, technology, medicine, politics, and more are necessary for effective change. This demands interdisciplinary collaboration, and most importantly, perseverance.

A Large-Scale Distraction

Why don’t we already focus our efforts on wicked problems? It seems that our powerful companies and consultancies have become distracted by a different type of problem: differentiation . Innovation describes some form of differentiation or newness. But in product design and product development, tiered releases and differentiation often replace innovation, although they often are claimed as such. Consider the automotive industry, where vehicles in an existing brand are introduced each year with only subtle aesthetic or feature changes. For example, except for slight interior changes and a few new safety features, the 2012 Ford F-150 is the same as the vehicle offered the year before. 2 This phenomenon also is true of other industries, such as toys, appliances, consumer electronics, fashion, even foods, beverages, and services.

This idea of constant but meaningless change drives a machine of consumption, where advertisers pressure those with extra purchasing power into unnecessary upgrades through a fear of being left behind. Consultants and product managers craft product roadmaps that describe the progressive qualities of incremental changes. In fact, it’s considered a best practice and a standard operating procedure to launch subsequent releases of the same product—with minor cosmetic changes—in subsequent months after the original product’s launch. For example, between its 1990 launch and the end of 2004, Canon released 11 versions of its Rebel camera (in 1990, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1999, February and September of 2002, March and September of 2003, April and September of 2004). 3 And Apple has released a new version of the iPod every year since its 2001 launch. 4

This constant push is characterized as a “release cycle”—the amount of time between versions of a product reaching the market. For most of industrialized history, a release cycle for a product was a year or more; complicated offerings like vehicles typically took three or more years from product conception to launch. But technology has afforded advances not only in our products but in the way we make them, so the release cycle has shrunk—a lot. Advances in tooling and manufacturing, the influx of cheap and generic pre-made components, and the ability for software-based firmware upgrades have accelerated product release cycles to three to six months.

Tooling ensures only incremental design change. It describes the process of creating individual, giant machines that will cut, grind, injection-mold, and robotically create a particular product. The tools used to produce an Apple computer are unique to (and probably owned by) Apple, and their production is one of the most expensive parts of the product development process. For example, a simple, small die-cast tool to produce 50,000 low-quality aluminum objects may cost $25,000. It’s in the company’s best interest to use the tool as many times as possible before it begins to fall apart, so the tool begins to act as a design constraint for future product releases. Put another way, if our tool was designed to produce 50,000 objects, and we’ve only made and sold 25,000, it makes financial sense for the next version of our product to use the same tool.

Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) contributes to the increased speed of product cycles and is another deterrent to quality and innovation. These are generic parts that manufacturers can use rather than producing their own, decreasing the time to market by skipping the tooling process. For example, a camera company can select OEM camera bezels and internal components. After adding the logo to the sourced materials, this hypothetical company can begin shipping cameras. The company can then differentiate its OEM parts by investing time in software, adding digital features and functions to physical products to distinguish these products.

The primary driver behind incremental, mostly cosmetic innovation and a constant push of releases that leverage OEM parts is simple: quarterly profits . Every three months, Fortune 500 companies report their earnings to investors. If a company reports losses—or even less-than-expected gains—the price of a stock drops, investors lose money, and those with the most shares lose the most money. So stockholders want the company to make as much money as possible in three-month increments . And these short increments constrain any activities and initiatives that take longer than three months. Revolutionary products usually take much, much longer than three months to conceive, design, and build. Unlike a Version 3 product that can leverage an existing manufacturing plant, process, and supply and distribution chains, a new product’s infrastructure must be built from scratch.

People who work at big companies try to create these revolutionary products. But each time profits are reported, the inevitable reorganization occurs—management’s attempt to show investors increased productivity, refined or repositioned strategy, and controlled spending. This reorganization can literally move people to another area of a company or to another company altogether, and in this movement, product development initiatives are lost. Witness the early death of Microsoft Kin or HP’s TouchPad—products that internal reorganizations removed from the marketplace before they could prove their efficacy. The Kin barely lasted forty-eight days on the market 5 , while TouchPad was canceled after seven weeks 6 ; discussions of their death typically focus on internal fighting, misalignment with a given market strategy, cost minimization, or confusion about the products’ position within the brand—rather than on the products themselves.

Ultimately, then, companies and individuals engaged in mass production are incented to drive prices down, produce the same thing over and over, innovate slowly, create differentiation in product lines only through cosmetic changes and minor feature augmentations, and to relentlessly keep making stuff . If we look to major brands and corporations to manage the negative consequences resulting from their work or even to drive social change and innovation, we’ll be discouraged. Social change requires companies to escape the constant drive towards quarterly profits. Even those who find profitability in the social sector—and there are countless examples—require a longer iteration period than three months, so social change is destined to be ignored by the large, publically traded corporations that possess most of the wealth and capability.

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If you are faced with something unsolvable then you are likely to be dealing with something called a Wicked Problem. The term “wicked problem” was coined by two of the greatest design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber referring to problems that have many independent factors that are either incomplete or undefined and require a deep understanding of designers in order to be fixed. Problems like Fundamentalism, global warming, economic crisis, or aging societies are called Wicked Problems because we ourselves, our beliefs and values, and our habits are part of these problems and they cannot be solved in the traditional way, we need new approaches, novel ideas, and fresh minds to solve them. In this article, we will discuss what are Wicked Problems and how we can solve them.

What are Wicked Problems?

Wicked Problem is a term referring to a problem that is very difficult to solve because of it having many independent factors that come into play, it requires a deep understanding of the topic, or it can not be solved with the current problem-solving approaches. The term “Wicked Problem” was coined by two of the greatest design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, Wicked problems are unconventional problems that require an innovative approach during the design thinking process in order to be solved.

Problems like Fundamentalism, global warming, economic crisis, or aging societies are called Wicked Problems because we ourselves, our beliefs and values and our habits are part of these problems and they cannot be solved in the traditional way, we need new approaches, novel ideas and fresh minds to solve them.

Characteristics of Wicked Problems

The wicked problems can be characterized by following 10 points:

• There is no definite formulation for wicked problems.
• Wicked problems do not have any stopping rule, hence there is no way to figure out if the solution you came up with is final.
• Wicked problems do not have a solution in Boolean format (true or false) the solutions are only either good or bad.
• It is not possible to test any solution to a Wicked problem immediately.
• Wicked problems have one shot operation solutions. It is not possible to use trial and error method in solving a wicked problem.
• Wicked problems do not have a defined number of potential solutions.
• Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
• For every wicked problem, there is a synonym wicked problem.
• Wicked problem has more that one explanation and these explanations vary from person to person
• Wicked problems have more than a single explanation due to the individual perspectives.

How to Solve Wicked Problems?

Wicked problems are wicked since there is no single approach to solve them. There is no step by step method to solve a wicked problem but there are few strategies that a designer can use to tackle these problems and solve them. Following are the three strategies to solve a wicked problem:

1. Curiosity to maneuver

• In order to solve a wicked problem, the biggest hurdle is to firstly understand it. Now to completely understand a wicked problem, the best practice would be to ask why. A wicked problem is quite complex to solve and approach may vary from individual to individual, one thing that remains constant is curiosity towards the problem statement.
• To stick around until you find a solution, one must be curious enough for solving the problem. This is because the process of solving a wicked problem is lengthy and you may never reach an end, you will surely get stuck at multiple points and feel frustrated, here your curiosity towards the problem statement will help you maneuver and move ahead.

2. Divide the Problem statement

• A very common mistake many designers do during working with Wicked Problems is that since most of the Wicked Problems are of global significance, such as global warming, currency, etc. many designers tend to “disrupt” these industries without focusing on dividing the problem statement to smaller chunks of solvable issues.
• Make sure to segment the bigger problem into a smaller batch of problems and work on those individually and design backwards to your capabilities. Always remember, you may keep the bigger problem in your mind but working on one smaller problem at a time is essential for solving these Wicked Problems.
• Empathy is a one stop solutions to many of designers problems but it is not easy to attain. It requires practice, the important thing around empathy is that when you listen with empathy, this may mean that the ideas you get a against your organization’s status quo.
• Most of the ideas that comes from listening with empathy in order to fix a Wicked Problem are quite uncomfortable and hard to implement and follow upon. This is one of the reasons why Wicked Problems are so Wicked. Make sure to listen with empathy with the target audience and act upon your findings in order to fix a Wicked Problem.

Wicked Problems refers to problems that have many independent factors that are either incomplete or undefined and requires a deep understanding of designers in order to be fixed. There is no fixed recipe or a roadmap for solving a Wicked Problem, but there are some practices or strategies that can be worked upon to fix these Wicked Problems. Wicked problems are unconventional problems that requires an innovative approach during the design thinking process in order to be solved. As much are these Wicked problems are unconventional problems that requires an innovative approach during the design thinking process in order to be solved. are tough to solve, solving them means disrupting an entire industry and changing the lives of many people for good. Make sure to follow the points we discussed in our article to solve your next Wicked problem.

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How to Apply Design Thinking to Wicked Problems

A large part of a UX designer’s job is solving problems. In fact, the wide range of principles and mindsets employed by designers can be applicable beyond the realm of design itself.

Enter wicked problems. Essentially, these are problems in the world which prove incredibly difficult to solve, due to a complicated web of factors. How to tackle them has always been one of the great challenges.

Because good design is human-centered , designers are excellently positioned to help. So where did this concept come from, and how can Design Thinking help? Let’s find out.

First, we’re going to start by looking at where the term “wicked problems” first came from. We’ll then look at what makes up a wicked problem, and go through some examples. Lastly, we’ll look at how wicked problems and Design Thinking interact and how you can apply them to UX design.

If you’d like to skip ahead to a certain section, simply use the clickable menu:

• Where did wicked problems come from?
• Characteristics of a wicked problem
• Examples of wicked problems
• What is Design Thinking?
• Applying Design Thinking to wicked problems
• Final thoughts

1. Where did wicked problems come from?

Professor Horst W. J. Rittel, a design theorist from Berlin, coined the term “wicked problems” way back in 1973. 

Rittel was investigating how to tackle complex social policy problems in societies. He recognized that some of these problems shared characteristics that made them extremely difficult to solve, and he called these “wicked problems.”  

Wicked problems are:

• Unique and novel
• Difficult or impossible to solve
• Characterized by incomplete factors and complex interdependencies
• Subject to contradictory evidence
• Dependent on multiple stakeholders, often with conflicting interests

2. Characteristics of a wicked problem

In his paper, Professor Rittel also outlined the ten characteristics of a wicked problem:

• There is no definitive formula
• Wicked problems have no stopping rule —there’s no way to know your solution is final
• Solutions are not true-or-false ; they can only be good or bad
• There is no immediate test of a solution to a wicked problem
• Every solution to a wicked problem is a “one-shot operation” ; because there’s no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly
• Wicked problems don’t have a set number of potential solutions
• Every wicked problem is essentially unique
• Every wicked problem can be considered a symptom of another problem
• There is always more than one explanation for a wicked problem because the explanations vary greatly depending on the individual perspective
• Planners/designers have no right to be wrong and must be fully responsible for their actions

Now that we’ve looked at the definition and characteristics of wicked problems, let’s examine a few real-world issues to see if they meet the criteria to be described as a wicked problem.

3. Examples of wicked problems

The term “wicked problems” was first coined in the context of public policy, and so—perhaps unsurprisingly—many complex social problems prove to be wicked ones.

Let’s take a look at three real-world issues and see if they meet the criteria for a wicked problem.

1. Global heating

Is it unique and / or novel.

Yes—it is unique in the sense that we don’t face any problems similar to global heating as a whole. However, it has been talked about since at least the 1980s, so it is no longer a novel problem.

Is it difficult or impossible to solve?

Yes—it is certainly difficult to solve. Whether or not it is impossible to solve remains to be seen.

Is it characterized by incomplete factors and / or complex interdependencies?

Yes—an example of an incomplete factor is the potential unavailability of reliable data about how much any country has reduced its CO 2  emissions, due to the political, economic, and social pressure to show significant reductions.

Is it subject to contradictory evidence?

The scientific consensus that the climate is warming and this is being caused by humans is not subject to contradictory evidence to any significant degree—as of 2019, 99% of the scientific evidence supported it .

However, there is contradictory evidence regarding potential solutions, the pros and cons of nuclear energy being one.  

Is it dependent on multiple stakeholders with different interests?

Yes—not only do individual nations, groups of nations, industries, and unions have different interests, each of those contains multiple stakeholders with different agendas and interests, such as political parties, lobby groups, think- tanks, big business, etc.

Is it a wicked problem?

Yes—global heating clearly meets four of the five criteria to be classified as a wicked problem.

And some of the solutions suggested are subject to contradictory evidence, even if there is scientific consensus around the nature of the problem.

2. Homelessness

No—although the details of every city’s homelessness situation will vary, the causes and effects will overlap to the extent that the problem could not be described as unique.

And homelessness has been documented since 1383 and probably much earlier, so it is not a novel problem. 

That depends. It is probably impossible or nearly impossible to solve for societies that don’t have the financial means to provide state-funded housing.

However, some wealthier cities such as Helsinki have taken radical approaches that have all but eradicated rough-sleeping, if not homelessness.

Yes and no—the causes of homelessness are generally understood, so incomplete factors wouldn’t apply.

Conversely, somewhat complex interdependencies do exist when tackling homelessness at city or individual level, because the functioning, legislation, and definitions of the city or national governments; housing officers, social workers, the homeless individuals themselves, and their families can all potentially contribute to the outcome.

Generally no—most of the main solutions applied to reduce homelessness are evidence-based.

Yes—tackling homelessness at a city level requires sustained government support and commitment, which means multiple stakeholder involvement.

As well as that, most approaches would require cooperation with stakeholders such as social services, landlords, charities, and healthcare professionals. 

Overall, homelessness is not a wicked problem. Although it is dependent on multiple stakeholders with different interests, it is neither a unique nor a novel problem.

There are proven methods to tackling homelessness and eradicating or almost eradicating it is possible with the right resources and strategy.

3. Turning around a long-term chronically underperforming school

No—similar to homelessness, although each underperforming school’s situation will be unique, the causes and effects of many will overlap so they could not be described as unique in any meaningful way.

Some underperforming schools will have been failing since mass education began, so it cannot be described as a novel problem, either.

Yes—it is likely that it is at least difficult to turn around an underperforming school in an economically deprived area and—in the worst cases and depending on the resources available—it might be impossible.

Yes—long-term school underperformance is characterized by complex interdependencies between national and local educational, economic, and social policies.

As well as this, multiple interdependent causes and symptoms could be at play, such as:

• health issues
• absenteeism
• lack of study space
• lack of trusted adult relationships
• lack of youth services
• substance abuse
• malnutrition
• language barriers
• gang membership

Yes—there is contradictory evidence as to which approaches and solutions are most likely to succeed in turning around a chronically underperforming school.

Yes—a solution would be dependent on school staff and administrators, as well as state level and local infrastructure with their own interests and agenda.

Parents, guardians, students, youth workers, charities, and other stakeholders would also be involved in any potential solution.

Yes, the difficulty of turning around a chronically underperforming school, as well as the multiple and complex interdependencies and stakeholders involved mean turning around a long-term chronically underperforming school is a wicked problem.

Now we’ve defined wicked problems and taken a look at real-world examples, let’s explore how it applies to design.

We’ll do this by first seeing what the Design Thinking Process is, and examine how it could be applied to a wicked problem.

4. What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that is extremely useful for tackling ill-defined, complex, or unknown problems. 

As its name suggests, the process emerged in the design field and was often applied to design problems. Now it is widely used in design, product, and development teams globally.

Design Thinking is structured to:

• Understand users
• Reframe problems in human-centered ways
• Challenge underlying assumptions
• Redefine problems
• Rapidly create innovative solutions to prototype and test.

For a deeper understanding of Design Thinking, you can take a look at our comprehensive guide to Design Thinking . You can also let designer Rob Hamblen explain about the Design Thinking Process and how to apply it in this video:

Typically, the Design Thinking Process is made up of five key stages:

These stages aren’t necessarily linear, as discoveries made along the way often require previous steps to be repeated.

And, due to the unique and challenging nature of complex design problems, the process will often need to be run through several times.

Now, if we circle back to our opening description of wicked problems, we can see that wicked problems can often resemble complex design problems . 

Both wicked problems and complex design problems are unique and novel, difficult or impossible to solve, and characterized by incomplete factors and complex interdependencies. 

On top of this, they’re often subject to contradictory evidence and dependent on multiple stakeholders with different interests.

This connection comes into play when we consider the potential value and relevance of Design Thinking in approaching wicked problems. 

It was Richard Buchanan, a design theorist and academic, who first connected the two in his 1992 paper “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking.”

He made the connection between Design Thinking and wicked problems after he saw that the iterative process in Design Thinking could be applied to wicked problems outside of the design world.

To explore this further, let’s take one of the wicked problems we looked at earlier—the challenge of turning around a chronically underperforming school—and see how Design Thinking could be applied to it.

5. Applying Design Thinking to wicked problems

Applying Design Thinking to turn around a chronically underperforming school could result in a rapid iterative process that looked something like this:

1. Empathize—Research your users’ needs

The first stage of the Design Thinking Process is empathizing. This means researching and understanding your users’ needs.

When applied to turning around an underperforming school, the main user groups would be students, parents, guardians, teachers, and school administrators. Local politicians and community leaders might be secondary groups.

In this case, the best form of research would probably be one-on-one interviews. The aim would be to learn about users’ situations—specifically their precise needs, pain points, and blockers. 

2. Define—State your users’ needs and problems

The next stage is defining the users’ needs and problems. The information will help to define the various root causes at the heart of the school’s underperformance.

All of the user groups—students, parents, guardians, teachers, and school administrators—would have different needs and different problems preventing them from having those needs met. 

A key part of the Design Thinking Process is fully understanding users’ needs and problems, and by the end of step two you should have a solid understanding of them and their root causes.

3. Ideate—Challenge assumptions and create ideas

The next stage is ideation, which means challenging the assumptions underlying the wicked problem and brainstorming multiple ideas for tackling it.

In this case, an assumption to challenged could be: 

The school budget means it’s impossible to afford the support and facilities necessary to tackle the root causes of underperformance.

That assumption itself is based on two other assumptions—that the school budget is fixed, and that the support and facilities need to be paid for out of the school budget.

The Design Thinking Process would create ideas to challenge those assumptions. Examples could be:

• A parent and guardian council partnered with school leadership and governors to lobby the education board for increased funding 
• Building partnerships with youth mentoring, drug awareness, and tutoring charities
• Starting a fundraising campaign for sporting and creative facilities and ventures
• A project in partnership with local government to ensure every student’s household is receiving the financial support and healthcare they are entitled to
• Targeted outreach to parents and guardians who are speakers of other languages to make them aware of their children’s school situation and put them in touch with free translation services. 

Now the process has led to a set of ideas that could be used to tackle the school’s underperformance, the next stage would be to start prototyping.

4. Prototype—Start to create solutions

If you’re not familiar with it yet, brush up on our introductory guide to prototyping .

Creating a prototype from the idea of building a partnership with a tutoring charity could look like this:

• Establishing contact with the tutoring charity
• Agreeing on the terms of a pilot intensive tutoring program 
• Working with teachers to assign tutoring for 10 students with a high need for support
• Working with students, teachers, parents, and guardians to ensure students understand their responsibilities in the tutoring program. 

After creating this solution as part of the prototype, it would be time to test its effectiveness.

5. Test—Try your solutions out

After the intensive tutoring pilot program was rolled out, its success could be measured both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Qualitative success metrics could be gathered from interviewing the students, tutors, and parents about what went well and what didn’t. 

Quantitative success metrics could be indicators such as the students’ performance in the tutored subject before and after the program. 

If the program was having the desired impact, it could be expanded to include more students. 

Alternatively, if it wasn’t having the desired impact, we could return to stage four to an earlier stage in the process and iterate on the pilot program prototype or focus on an altogether new solution.

Final thoughts: why Design Thinking and wicked problems can go together

Design Thinking can be applied to wicked problems successfully for three main reasons.

Firstly, its emphasis on gathering evidence in the empathize stage is useful for approaching a wicked problem with a clear foundation for action as well as a strong understanding of the users, stakeholders, and interdependencies involved. 

Secondly, its rapid iterative process (empathize → define → ideate → prototype → test) is particularly suited to the unique, complex, and difficult nature of wicked problems. 

This is because it encourages broad and creative ideation which produces multiple solutions, which can then be tested rapidly and/or simultaneously.

Finally, Design Thinking stresses the importance of failing often—as quick and cheap failures are a key part of the iterative process. Each failure should be another step towards a solution. 

This is a very useful approach for tackling wicked problems, as it accelerates the learning process and ensures resources aren’t wasted on slow and expensive failures.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our exploration of wicked problems and Design Thinking. To dive deeper into the subject, why not check out our comprehensive guide The Key Principles and Steps of the Design Thinking Process .

If you’d like to read about other topics from the field of UX design, check out these articles:

• Inclusive Design vs. Universal Design: What’s the Difference?
• 11 Best Free Wireframe Tools for UX Designers
• What Is Lateral Thinking? The Skill You Need

Wicked Problems and Sustainable Development

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 25 October 2018
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Lorelei L. Hanson 2  

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Complex ; Intractable ; Messy

Wicked problems are intractable social issues that defy traditional problem-solving approaches because they are characterized by high levels of complexity and ambiguity and involve multiple stakeholder groups with strongly divergent values and perspectives. While initially applied in a social planning context, sustainability researchers have increasingly utilized this lens to explain the multidimensions of many sustainable development issues and explore new ways for addressing these complex issues.

Introduction

In this entry, the origin of wicked problems as a concept and its ten distinguishing properties is discussed. These characteristics are then used to discuss vexing dimensions of sustainable development that are highlighted in the research literature. There is increased attention by sustainability researchers to how traditional decision-making approaches, management strategies, public policy responses, and education are insufficient...

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Hanson, L.L. (2019). Wicked Problems and Sustainable Development. In: Leal Filho, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63951-2_522-1

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“Wicked” problems: What are they, and why are they of interest to NNSI researchers?

• By NNSI Editorial Team
• In Wicked Problems

by: Katherine Cooper

Not too long ago, I sat in on a meeting of local leaders as they wrestled with an education initiative that they were trying to implement in the community. Although the group’s goal sounded simple enough – introducing literacy programming into existing school and community projects – the conversation soon became complicated. There is a clear link between improving literacy and improving educational outcomes, but what else poses a problem to educational achievement? The conversation soon turned to a discussion of racial disparities in the community, the failure of schools and nonprofits to recognize and address trauma in student populations, impending budget cuts, and the challenges of sharing data across schools and social service providers. “This is a wicked problem,” acknowledged one of the leaders in the room, to the agreement of others. What is a wicked problem, and how do we address these in practice and research? This week, we define and discuss the “wicked problem,” including its origins in research, current wicked problems in our communities today, and how NNSI addresses these challenges in research.

What is a wicked problem?

In 1973, design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin M. Webber used the term “wicked problem” to refer to problems that are difficult to define and inherently unsolvable. They suggested the following 10 characteristics of wicked problems:

• A lack of definitive formulation.
• No stopping rule that determines when a solution has been found.
• Good or bad solutions rather than true or false solutions.
• Lack of immediate and ultimate tests of solutions.
• Solutions are “one-shot” operations rather than trial and error.
• Lack of criteria that indicate all solutions have been identified.
• The uniqueness of every wicked problem.
• Any wicked problem could be viewed as a symptom of another problem.
• Any discrepancies in wicked problem can be explained in multiple ways.
• Planners have no right to be wrong in that they are responsible for outcomes that result from the actions they take.

What are common wicked problems? How are wicked problems different from other problems?

In their original work, Rittel and Webber suggested that wicked problems are typically those pertaining to governmental, social, or policy planning. Examples of wicked problems that have been addressed in scholarly literature include poverty, urban renewal, school curriculum design, education, environmental and natural resources policy.

All of these suggest challenging social problems that involve a number of different stakeholders with different views. If you were to ask 10 people about homeless in their community, you would likely receive 10 different responses in terms of the main contributors to homeless in their area, and 10 different responses as to the best ways of reducing homelessness. Their responses are likely to be informed by their personal values and circumstances as much as influences in the community.

This suggests that wicked problems differ from other problems. Weber and Khademiam (2008) argue that wicked problems are unstructured, cross-cutting, and relentless. Here’s how we might think about this in terms of homelessness:

• Wicked problems are unstructured in that it is difficult to sort out causes and effects and little consensus in identifying problems and solutions. What causes homelessness? How do factors like affordable housing and employment impact homelessness? Would housing insecurity impact someone’s ability to secure employment? What personal circumstances might impact a person’s ability to secure housing? What community circumstances?
• Wicked problems are cross-cutting in that they have many overlapping stakeholders with different perspectives on the problem. How might the operators of a local shelter view homelessness in their community? What about local government officials? Social service nonprofits that operate local food banks or offer employment officials? Local business owners? Medical professionals? People who live in the community? Those who have lived experiences of homelessness? In what ways might these stakeholder groups agree with each other or disagree with regards to how they can reduce homelessness in their shared community?
• Wicked problems are relentless; they can’t be solved “once and for all.” Would simply building more shelters or providing access to affordable housing solve the problem? What if housing solutions were provided alongside health screenings and counseling? Can we ever really bring about an end to homelessness?

Why is NNSI interested in wicked problems?

At NNSI, we’re primarily interested in how wicked problems bring together different groups or sectors – nonprofits, government agencies, and business – alongside groups or individuals from the community. In our research, we pose some of the following questions:

• What stakeholder groups come together in response to a wicked problem, such as improving educational outcomes?
• How do these stakeholders understand the wicked problem?
• Do some stakeholder groups have more influence in defining or framing the wicked problem?
• If wicked problems pose challenges to a community but may be unsolvable, how – and why – do stakeholders commit to working on these problems?

Where can I learn more about wicked problems?

A number of researchers and scholars have written about wicked problems, including the two articles cited in this post:

Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy sciences, 4 (2), 155-169.

Weber, E. P., & Khademian, A. M. (2008). Wicked problems, knowledge challenges, and collaborative capacity builders in network settings. Public Administration Review , 68 (2), 334-349.

Additionally, the Austin Center for Design offers a book on wicked problems for social entrepreneurs that can be accessed online: https://www.wickedproblems.com/read.php

Harvard Business Review offers some further insights on identifying and solving wicked problems:

https://hbr.org/2008/05/strategy-as-a-wicked-problem

Networks are suggested as a resource for tackling wicked problems in this Nonprofit Quarterly reprint:

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2013/12/23/learning-transformative-networks-to-address-wicked-problems-a-golden-invitation/

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Strategy as a Wicked Problem

• John C. Camillus

“Wicked” problems can’t be solved, but they can be tamed. Increasingly, these are the problems strategists face—and for which they are ill equipped.

Reprint: R0805G

In today’s complex world, companies often find themselves facing confounding strategy problems. These issues are not just tough or persistent; they’re “wicked”—a label used by urban planners for problems that cannot be definitively resolved. Poverty and terrorism are classic examples. A wicked problem has innumerable causes, morphs constantly, and has no correct answer. It can be tamed, however, with the right approach.

In this article, Camillus, a professor at the Katz Graduate School of Business, explains how executives can tell if they’re dealing with a wicked strategy problem. In a 15-year study involving 22 companies, he identified five key criteria. If a problem involves many stakeholders with conflicting priorities; if its roots are tangled; if it changes with every attempt to address it; if you’ve never faced it before; and if there’s no way to evaluate whether a remedy will work, chances are good that it’s wicked. According to the author, the need for faster growth is, in all likelihood, a wicked issue for Wal-Mart.

Traditional linear processes—identifying the issue, gathering data, studying all the options, choosing one strategy—don’t work with wicked problems. They instead demand social processes that constantly engage stakeholders, explore related issues, reevaluate the problem’s definition, and reconsider the assumptions of stakeholders. A strong corporate identity is essential: It serves as a rudder that helps the enterprise navigate a sea of choices. Because it’s impossible to tell which options are appropriate, executives should stop analyzing them and start experimenting with actions. Eventually they will make progress by muddling through. Envisioning possible futures and identifying moves that will realize the one the company hopes for will uncover promising remedies. That’s how PPG Industries, a 100-year-old manufacturer, has successfully coped with its wicked strategy issues.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve been studying how companies create strategy—the most important responsibility of senior executives. Many corporations, I find, have replaced the annual top-down planning ritual, based on macroeconomic forecasts, with more sophisticated processes. They crunch vast amounts of consumer data, hold planning sessions frequently, and use techniques such as competency modeling and real-options analysis to develop strategy. This type of approach is an improvement because it is customer- and capability-focused and enables companies to modify their strategies quickly, but it still misses the mark a lot of the time.

• JC John C. Camillus ( [email protected] ) is the Donald R. Beall Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Pittsburgh’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business.

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What Makes a Wicked Problem?

In the 21st century, “wicked problems” appear at every turn. Wicked problems, as defined by design theorist Horst W. J. Rittel and city planning professor Melvin M. Webber in the 1970s, are complex social or cultural problems with an unknown number of potential solutions. 1 On a global scale, one can see thorny, seemingly intractable issues like poverty, education equality and sustainability as wicked problems.

Wicked problems play out on the global, community and individual levels. Because there are no clear-cut fixes, proposing solutions (and challenging those solutions) often plays a prominent role in politics, and they can affect the missions and operations of businesses worldwide.

A challenge can be considered a wicked problem if includes the following criteria: 2

• The problem has an unknown set of potential consequences
• The amount of information available to “solve” the problem is unmeasurable
• The problem is difficult to define and frame
• The problem may be described differently by various stakeholders
• Even after taking action, there is no way of knowing which course of action is best
• It is impossible to gauge whether or not a sufficient solution has been achieved

The William & Mary Online MBA program requires students to identify an example of a wicked problem in their personal or professional lives, and then use that issue to guide them through their studies as they pursue their degree. This unique program enables students to think in terms of the big picture and learn how to execute the details that help make the businesses they work with thrive and, in a broader sense, help make the world a better place.

What Work Is Typically Done on Wicked Problems?

Approaches to alleviating wicked problems are typically individualistic in nature, dependent on factors such as where the problem is occurring and who it is affecting. It is difficult to measure the outcome of work done to solve wicked problems because, by their very nature, they must be confronted in a multitude of different contexts and by different stakeholders.

For example, an improvement of childhood nutrition in Virginia due to a certain strategy may be impossible to replicate when the same strategy is implemented in Kenya. This is because, according to Rittel and Webber, humans “invent” wicked problems through their own activities, so scientific approaches rooted in understanding the natural world are ineffective at analyzing and solving them. 3

Wicked problems are often addressed by policymakers, as well as professionals who manage large groups or organizations like educational institutions. Wicked problems can also affect the business world in many ways. A report in the Harvard Business Review stated that although using data and competency modeling to address strategy is wise, increasingly complex working environments are difficult to capture in such a model. 2

A business problem might be wicked if it includes:

• Stakeholder disagreements
• Complex roots of the problem
• A lack of precedent for the problem
• Difficulty solving the problem or identifying possible solutions

When wicked problems threaten the strategy and stability of a business organization, top executives as well as various department heads may all have differing opinions about its potential solution, making the problem even more wicked.

How Can You Help Solve a Wicked Problem?

Just because wicked problems are intimidating doesn't mean they're not worth solving. Identifying these problems and committing to a strategy aimed at reaching their best outcomes can help companies and other parties facing wicked problems begin to tackle them. Additionally, the business challenges you face most often may not be to the same scale as an organization-wide wicked problem, but the problem-solving techniques outlined below are applicable across issues faced in general management and throughout various levels of a business.

Some techniques for tackling wicked problems include:

Research and Understand the Wicked Problem From All Angles

Use documented case studies to convey how the wicked problem is affecting the organization. Ask for multiple stakeholders' opinions on the problem, and ask for suggestions on how they would tackle it. In addition to soliciting insight from shareholders and customers, empower employees to present possible solutions.

Use Brand Identity and Values to Come to Possible Solutions

These important components can make working on a wicked problem easier, since you already have guiding principles in place to influence your decisions.

Experiment With Actions

Wicked problems can foster endless hours of analysis. Get better results by trying out strategies and using their outcomes to influence new decisions. Taking some type of thoughtful action is better than being paralyzed by multiple possibilities and doing nothing at all.

Anticipate Wicked Problems Now

Smooth-sailing organizations may not fear the future presence of wicked problems. The best way to stay prepared is to constantly test assumptions that exist about expected revenue and the social impact of your business. This discovery-driven planning can help executives make better decisions throughout the organization and better cope with wicked problems when they arise.

There are many ways individuals can contribute to the solving of wicked problems. Having a clear vision of a successful outcome, promoting a trusting atmosphere for brainstorming, sharing knowledge for better collaboration and testing out ideas to gain small wins for the big picture are all valuable steps in working on wicked problems. 4

Tackle Wicked Problems and Build Out Your Problem-Solving Tool Box

To help you effectively strengthen your problem-solving muscles, William & Mary’s Raymond A. Mason School of Business created a user-friendly guide , How to Tackle Big Business Problems: Solving Wicked Problems With Little Bets . Working through business challenges and wicked problems requires creativity and tenacity. In this guide, you will learn more about the discovery process to find solutions for seemingly insurmountable business problems. From idea generation to experimentation to information gathering and idea refinement, we’ll walk you through the best practices for solving complex problems.

In this guide, you will get:

• An introduction to wicked problems—what they are, how to identify them and how they impact business
• A tool to determine just how wicked your business problem might be
• Steps to begin working through your wicked problem
• An introduction to little bets—learning how to test ideas using low-risk experiments
• Considerations to help you discover, test and more fully develop problem-solving ideas

Learn more about this free guide and get your own copy here .

Work on a Wicked Problem as You Study for an Online MBA

Go deeper on the wicked problem and much more with an online MBA. Choosing a wicked problem to work on is an integral part of the Online MBA program at William & Mary . The wicked problem can be something you're facing at work, or a larger business issue you want to tackle. This wicked problem will be thematically tied to your coursework, and through this model, students are able to apply what they're learning to address complex, real-world problems.

• Retrieved on February 14, 2018, from urbanpolicy.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Rittel+Webber_1973_PolicySciences4-2.pdf
• Retrieved on February 14, 2018, from hbr.org/2008/05/strategy-as-a-wicked-problem
• Retrieved on February 14, 2018, from wickedproblems.com/1_wicked_problems.php
• Retrieved on February 14, 2018, from hbr.org/2016/06/wicked-problem-solvers

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William & Mary has engaged Everspring , a leading provider of education and technology services, to support select aspects of program delivery.

Wicked Problem Solving Course Review (PMI)

This blog is reader-supported. When you purchase something through an affiliate link on this site, I may earn some coffee money. Thanks! Learn more .

Read our review guidelines .

Welcome to my PMI Wicked Problem Solving course review! Project management has so many challenges to solve every day, so having a toolbox of techniques (and the right attitude) will help you deliver projects successfully.

But do you really need a course on problem-solving? It turns out you do. In this independent review, I’ll share:

• Whether the course is really worth it (I think so)
• Why it’s good for experienced project and change management practitioners
• Who shouldn’t do the course?

It does take quite a lot of time to go through the material, and I’ve done that, so you don’t have to. At least, not until you decide it’s right for you and you’re ready to invest the 15-18 hours that the course takes!

The Wicked Problem Solving course

The WPS course is a self-paced video training class is a partnership between PMI and Tom Wujec. I had not heard of Tom before, but he is a tech pioneer, facilitator, and TED speaker.

Tom calls the course “an operating system for solving problems and fostering greater collaboration.”

It’s worth 18 PDUs, and there is no exam, but there are recap quizzes.

What is a wicked problem?

A wicked problem is a problem that has a high degree of uncertainty and complexity. They are hard to solve because there are many variables and many potential solutions. Think about culture change, saving the rainforest, social planning, exploring the planets.

The type of wicked problem facing a business could be digital transformation, responding to globalization, addressing challenges in recruiting and retaining staff. These are all affected by socio-political, environmental, technological, and cultural shifts. And they might have unintended consequences.

Wicked problem solving is a design thinking approach that slots together, so you can use them in a flexible way to find the best way to solve problems. You can use it on your own or with others to come to a conclusion.

It’s a set of tools to help you develop the knowledge and skills to solve the tricky issues (and probably even the easy ones).

It will help you do the hard things and build better solutions and have some fun along the way.

Who is Wicked Problem Solving for?

Given that it deals with the big problems facing organizations, I think the course is best for senior project managers, program managers, and portfolio leaders. While anyone will benefit from the tools and the way the course helps you think differently, you’ll be able to better use those skills if you are in a role where you can effect strategic change.

I think it’s also helpful if you are a good facilitator already, as there is a lot of collaborative work required and assumed. If you aren’t confident leading a group, you might find it harder to put the skills into practice.

As a final advantage, if you are a senior leader who finds it boring to earn PDUs, this is for you! You get 18 PDUs credited to your PMI account , so it’s worth a lot. You have to complete the final course evaluation survey to get the PDUs.

It’s a method-agnostic approach, so it works whether you are working in an agile , predictive, or hybrid environment, and it doesn’t matter if you follow PMI methodologies or not.

Who shouldn’t do this course?

I don’t think this is a beginner’s course. It’s nothing particularly to do with project management, so you don’t need to have a lot of project experience, but if you are just starting out in project or change management , I’d get some of the other core skills first.

It’s also not the right choice for you if you need a certificate. There is no exam with this course, so you don’t get any credential. You do get a digital badge from Credly, and to earn that, you have to do the multiple-choice end-of-module quizzes/feedback assessments.

About the course and structure

The course is designed to help you learn how to organize tasks into a clear question, a shared idea, and a way of curating an activity to help others work through and solve the problem. Tom calls these ‘plays.’

You’ll learn:

• How to work out if you can turn your current problem into a ‘play’
• If you can, what question is the key question to ask?
• How can you turn the problem into a visualization like a diagram so the team has a shared understanding of the challenge?
• What activity can we get people to perform to help address the problem?

Those questions are quite helpful on a smaller scale, too, for example dealing with project risk or unpicking a difficult project issue. The idea of ‘making ideas visible’ is great because it ensures the team understands the problem before they move into the design process or coming up with alternative solutions.

The course comes with a brilliant PDF workbook and digital playing cards. They take an age to download because they are marked with your PMI account details with a note on each page saying you can’t share them. I wish I had a color printer that was up to the job of getting these printed out!

The advantages of the course are as follows.

• It’s really helpful content – you learn real-life skills
• The playbook is worth the cost of the course
• It’s easy to navigate and beautifully designed.

It’s more than a course. It’s a playbook with a toolkit. There are downloadable PDF resources and a workbook that goes alongside the video. I also got a set of the physical cards that act as prompts for each play.

The playbook helps you select the right approach for any situation. It’s full of very practical exercises that you can use in any kind of workshop, whether small groups, large groups, or virtual. Even the playbook alone is worth the cost of the course if you run meetings, workshops, or facilitate groups.

If you run cross-industry projects or just find yourself in complex interactions with different teams and strategies at work, the course gives you the mental models, systems models, and planning process to dive into problems.

The resources are beautifully designed. It’s attractive, and the team has definitely made the course a great user experience. The videos are very polished. It’s definitely a professional production, and it feels valuable.

It comes with a Miro board so you can complete the exercises, plot out your diagrams and get some real experience using the tools.

Like all courses, there are some disadvantages, namely:

• There’s a lot of content to get through
• The videos are inaccessible if you prefer to watch with captions
• It’s pricey for only 3 months of access.

I felt quite overwhelmed logging in and seeing “0 out of 65 topics complete”. That makes the course seem like a lot. It is, but the videos are quite short.

To get the most out of the course, you need to do all the exercises. If you just want to read and watch, you’ll pick up the theory, but the real benefit comes in being able to apply that. You need to practice what you learn.

The embedded videos do not let you manage speed controls. This is a huge disappointment for me. I generally watch videos on x1.25 speed or sometimes 1.5 speed if the speaker talks really slowly. If I’m concentrating, I can take the info in that quickly.

The course is not accessible: there are no captions or transcripts. That means you can’t watch the videos while sitting in a darkened room waiting for a child to go to sleep, or on the train unless you have headphones.

Finally, the cost. An individual license is $649. I don’t actually think it’s expensive: I paid about 30% more than that for a virtual facilitation course that was about the same length (although it was live). Plus, you only get access for 3 months. That might be an advantage if you need to be motivated to complete online learning!

I can see how that price tag would put your manager off when you pitch using the team’s training budget for a course that doesn’t directly lead to technical skills or a credential.

Recommendation: Should you get this course?

Problem solving was the top skill* that project managers were perceived to have in a study by PwC and PMI. However, only 25% of senior leaders thought the project managers in their business were problem solvers.

Project leaders need to be able to solve problems – it’s part of what we do. And it’s hard to build that skill. Ideally you want to improve your skills in this area without having to learn through (bad) experiences.

A lot of thought has gone into making Wicked Problem Solving the best, most practical course on the market.

That’s why I think this is a worthwhile course to do. Ready to find out more? Watch the first lesson free on the WPS website and draw how to make toast!

Join this project management course on solving problems with a high degree of uncertainty and complexity. You will also earn 18 PDUs.

* PMI and PwC. 2021. PMI and PwC Global Survey on Transformation and Project Management 2021 (Narrowing the Talent Gap).

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Project manager, author, mentor

Elizabeth Harrin is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management in the UK. She holds degrees from the University of York and Roehampton University, and several project management certifications including APM PMQ. She first took her PRINCE2 Practitioner exam in 2004 and has worked extensively in project delivery for over 20 years. Elizabeth is also the founder of the Project Management Rebels community, a mentoring group for professionals. She's written several books for project managers including Managing Multiple Projects .