Intro to a seminar on 'working with wicked problems' - www.shiftn.com

1. Working with
Wicked Problems
Philippe Vandenbroeck, shiftN
February 2011
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2. WICKED PROBLEMS
A special class of
problems ?
Picture: Calabi‐Ya Manifold
Courtesy Berkeley Center for
Cosmological Physics
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3. Our current predicament
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4. Enter the
Anthropocene
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5. 'Hockey sGck curves'
abound
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6. Planetary
Predicament
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7. Global Governance
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Copyright: UNFCCC, 2010

8. ConnecGvity
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Picture: The Intenet

9. But what does this mean?
It's up to us to make sense of it ...
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10. CriGcal uncertainGes
A trap is a trap only for creatures
which cannot solve the problem
that it sets.
Man‐traps are dangerous only in
Sir Geoffrey Vickers
(1892‐1984) relaEon to the limitaEons on what
men can see and value and do.
The nature of the trap is a funcGon
of the nature of the trapped.
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11. Reconfiguring the
appreciaGve basis for
our existence
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12. What happens beyond the 'stable state' ...
RevoluGon Mindlessness
Return
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Picture: The Intenet

13. Engineering our way out
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Picture: The Intenet

14. Nevertheless we have made progress
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15. Cuban Missile Crisis, 1961 Kennedy AssassinaEon, 1963 Vietnam War, 1964‐1973
US urban riots, 1964 onwards Moon landing, 1969 Student revolt, 1968 Earth Day, 1970
The sixties
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16. Meadows 1972
The late
1960s and
early 1970s:
Kahn & Wiener 1968 a period of
Schon 1972 ferment
Ackoff 1973
Vickers 1972
De Jouvenel 1964
Toffler 1970
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17. CriGcal uncertainGes
Planning problems are inherently What decision‐makers deal with are
wicked: ill‐defined and reliant on messes, not problems. A mess is a set of
poliEcal judgment. They are never external condiEons that produces
solved. At best they are re‐solved, over dissaEsfacEon.
and over again.
Horst Ri]el and
Marvin Webber, 1973
The policy process is
'a swampy lowland'
where soluEons are
confusing messes Russ Ackoff, 1974
incapable of technical
soluEons
Don Schön,
1979
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18. Wicked problems: Wicked problems
• Unclear causaliEes.
• Numerous intervenEon points.
• Data are scarce, dispersed and low quality.
• Uncertainty regarding costs and benefits of intervenEons.
• MulEple stakeholders with different, oeen incompaEble worldviews.
• FormulaEon is subject to conEnuous reframing and renegoEaEon.
• OpEmal soluEons to wicked problems do not exist.
• There may be path dependency associated to intervenEon strategies.
Super‐wicked problems:
• The scope is planetary and the potenEal downside is very large.
• Those most responsible have least interest to do something.
• The longer one waits to do something about it, the more wicked it gets.
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19. Based on Cynefin Model
CogniGve Edge
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20. CriGcal uncertainGes
Methodological innovaGons in the 1960s and 70s
The coming of age of modern systems thinking
System Dynamics
Jay Forrester (1968) Making uncertainty
amenable to decision‐making
Morphological Analysis
Fritz Zwicky (1967, 1969)
Gebng a hold on
Delphi Analysis feedback structures
RAND Corpora7on (1959, 1964)
Scenario Planning Codifying the laws underpinning
Bertrand de Jouvenel, viability of organisaGons
Herman Kahn (1965, 1964)
Viable Systems Model
Stafford Beer (1972)
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21. 1998
1989
1992
The nineties
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22. Twin Towers, 2001 Dot com crash, 2001 US occupaEon of Iraq, 2003‐2009
Hurricane Katrina, 2005 Financial crisis, 2008 ‐ Afghanistan, 2005 ‐ Social media revoluEon, 2001 ‐
The noughties
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23. CriGcal uncertainGes
Methodological innovaGons from 1980s onwards
Soc Systems Methodology Intervening as learning
Peter Checkland (1984)
AnGcipaGng non‐linear dynamics
Systemic Governance (Gpping points, regime change)
Ralf‐Eckhard Türke (2008)
AdapGve Management 'Steering' large‐scale
C.S. (Buzz) Holling (1978) socio‐technical systems
toward sustainability
TransiGon Management
Jan Rotmans (1998)
Modifying objects so that
Design Thinking they can modify the world
Bruce Mau (2000)
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24. Pointers to relevant approaches
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25. Soc Systems Methodology
LUMAS‐model ‐
Learning for a User
by a
Methodologically‐
informed
Approach to a
SituaGon
Courtey:
P. Checkland and J. Poulter
(2004)
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26. SSM
• A pragmaEc approach to collaboraEvely improve
(our understanding of) fuzzy problemaEcal situaEons.
• Systems models are used as heurisEc devices, developed
from an explicitly declared worldview, not as 'pictures of
reality'.
• The purpose of SSM is not to reach consensus, but to
agree on a temporary 'accomodaEon', as a fleeEng
consolidaEon point in a learning process.
SSM = Learning for AcEon.
• SSM has been deployed in very varied circumstances
(governance, informaEon mgt, hermeneuEcs).
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27. Generic Governance
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28. Generic Governance
• An approach to facilitate the design and conEnuous re‐
design of social structures in complex governance semngs,
where decision‐making power is devolved and dispersed
and subject to different worldviews (e.g. ciEes, regions).
• Generic governance integrates insights from several
systems and futures thinking tradiEons.
• It is a meta‐methodology to improve the adapEve capacity
of an organizaEon: "It facilitates the creaEon of condiEons
for sustainable governance, which in consequence aids
addressing wicked problems – or even dissolving them."
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29. AdapGve Management
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30. AdapEve Management
• Ecologists developed an iteraEve approach to govern
complex human‐environmental systems. The
methodology mixes rigorous scienEfic monitoring and
characterisaEon of uncertainty with ongoing sense‐
making, negoEaEon and insEtuEon building.
• AdapEve management wants to contribute to 'resilience':
adapEve capacity in the face of disturbances.
• Inspired by insights from complexity science it tries to
understand how systems may be subjected to
catastrophic regime shies.
• Panarchy: adapEve cycles are nested in a hierarchy across
Eme and space (mulE‐level perspecEve).
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31.  BackcasEng
 MulE‐level perspecEve
 Fast and slow
TransiGon
Management
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32. TransiEon Management
• A meta‐methodology that emerged from Dutch
innovaEon policy, inspired by technology studies,
evoluEonary economics and complexity science.
• Focus on radical changes in large‐scale socio‐technical
systems (energy, mobility, agriculture, health care)
towards sustainability.
• TransiEon 'Management' = an oxymoron. Change comes
about as result of interacEons between different systemic
levels.
• Connects short term experiments with a long‐term vision
in a conEnuous learning dynamic: goal‐oriented
incrementalism.
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33. Future Scenarios
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34. Future scenarios
• Scenarios have been conceived as an instrument to
explicity integrate future uncertainty into decision‐making.
• The methodology is extensively used, in a wide variety of
semngs, from narrow decision‐oriented contexts to
encompassing mulEstakeholder processes.
• The approach conEnues to evolve. In this seminar we will
explore the use of scenarios as a way of acEon learning, in
conjuncEon with other tools, as an apempt to reframe our
basic assumpEons about global environmental problems:
RIMA scenarios.
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35. Design thinking
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36. Design thinking
• Designers have expanded their reach beyond products
and services, to include larger and more wicked
dysfuncEonaliEes.
• Design plays on the performaEve character of our physical
and insEtuEonal environment. Design is fundamentally
acEon‐oriented, pragmaEc, voluntarist, utopian.
• The designer as reflecEve pracEEoner relies on
meEculous, layered descripEon ('conversaEon avec une
situaEon', cfr Paola Vigano), reframing of the problem
situaEon and visualizaEon of alternaEve possibiliEes.
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37. Working with wicked problems
From 'tools' to 'approaches' to ...
• develop systemic insight
• make explicit normaEve choices
• pragmaEcally embrace acEon and experiment,
hence provisionality and open‐endedness
• support an ongoing dynamic of learning and
sense‐making
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38. John Dewey
1859-1952
"There is no quesEon of
theory versus pracEce
but rather of
intelligent pracEce versus
uninformed, stupid
pracEce."
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