Rethinking wicked problems

NextD Journal
RERETHINKING DESIGN 28
Rethinking Wicked Problems:
Unpacking Paradigms, Bridging Universes (Part 1 of 2)
Dr. Jeff Conklin
President and Founder of CogNexus Institute
Author, Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems
Dr. Min Basadur
President and Founder of Basadur Applied Creativity,
Basadur Center for Applied Creativity Research
Author, The Power of Innovation
GK VanPatter
Co-Founder, NextDesign Leadership Institute
Co-Founder, Humantific  Making Sense of Cross-Disciplinary Innovation
NextDesign Leadership Institute
DEFUZZ THE FUTURE!
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NextD Journal I ReReThinking Design Rethinking Wicked Problems:
Conversation 28 Part 1 of 2
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1
GK VanPatter: Welcome, Jeff and Min. I guess a good place to wade into the subject of
so-called “wicked problems” is to begin with a little historical context.
In 1960s and 70s, Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber wrote several articles including their
1973 Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning in which they coined the terminology of
“wicked problems” to describe a certain type of complex problem that they perceived to
exist.
In Wikipedia, the following explanation regarding the origin of the terminology “wicked
problems” can be found:
“The concept of “wicked problems” was originally proposed by H. J. Rittel (a
pioneering theorist of design and planning, and late professor at the University
of California, Berkeley) and M. Webber in a [1973] seminal treatise for social
planning [Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning]. Rittel expounded on the
nature of ill-defined design and planning problems which he termed “wicked” (i.e.,
messy, circular, aggressive) to contrast against the relatively “tame” problems of
mathematics, chess, or puzzle solving.
Wicked problems have incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements;
and solutions to them are often difficult to recognize as such because of complex
interdependencies. Rittel and Webber stated that while attempting to solve a
wicked problem, the solution of one of its aspects may reveal or create another,
even more complex problem.
Classic examples of wicked problems include economic, environmental, and
political issues. (For an extreme case, consider what it would take to “solve”
terrorism, where even the term “terrorism” is highly controversial and difficult to
define). Problems whose solution requires large groups of individuals to change
their mindsets and behaviors are likely to be a wicked problem. For examples of
analyses of world-scale wicked problems, you can read about the work done by
the Millennium Project of the American Council of the United Nations University.”
[Note: There are numerous points of view regarding exactly when the terminology of
“wicked problems” was first introduced. In 1967 C. W. Churchman wrote an editorial
in Management Science describing Rittel’s introduction of the term “wicked problems”
in a lecture at U.C. Berkeley (“Guest Editorial: Wicked Problems,” C. West Churchman,
Management Science, Vol. 14, No. 4, Dec. 1967). While most of the subsequent
literature dates Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning to 1973 some use the date
1968.]
Today there is so much hype around wicked problems that it would be easy to overlook
the preceding history and the fact that the rising complexity of problems had been
identified as an issue by the problem solving / operationalizing thinking community for
some time — twenty years before Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning appeared.
For example, in 1950, J. P. Guilford gave a widely recognized inaugural address entitled
“Creativity” to the American Psychological Association. As a senior scholar studying

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creativity, Guilford spoke of the rising complexity of problems facing the world and the
related educational challenges with regards to creativity.
“To live is to have problems, and to solve problems is to grow intellectually.
It is probably safe to say that at no time has a larger number of informed and
otherwise intellectually able individuals lived on this planet. Yet the problems
to be solved seem almost overwhelming: how to keep peace, how to feed and
clothe an expanding population, how to keep the population from expanding too
rapidly, and how to educate it.”
To place Rittel’s and Webber’s Dilemmas in context, here is an extremely abbreviated
publication timeline spanning 60+ years.
1973: Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning, Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber
1973: The Structure of Ill-Structured Problems, Herbert A. Simon
1971: The Metaphorical Way, William J. J. Gordon
1970: Design Methods, John Chris Jones
1969: The Sciences of the Artificial, Herbert A. Simon
1967: The Use of Lateral Thinking, Edward DeBono
1967: The Nature of Human Intelligence, J. P. Guilford
1967: Creative Behavior Guidebook, Sidney J. Parnes
1966: Creative Problem Solving Model, Alex Osborne and Sidney J. Parnes
1964: Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Christopher Alexander
1963: Applied Imagination, Alex F. Osborne
1962: Conference on Design Methods, Design Research Society, London
1961: Synectics, William J. J. Gordon
1957: Charles Franklin Kettering, T. A. Boyd
1953: Operational Approach to Creativity, William J. J. Gordon
1950: “Creativity,” American Psychologist, J. P. Guilford
1948: Your Creative Power, Alex Osborn
1946: Problems of Men, John Dewey
1922: Teaching to Think, Julius Borass
1910: How We Think, John Dewey
So here is the question: From your perspective, what did Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber
bring to the party in 1973 that was different then what was already being wrestled with in
the realm of creative problem solving?
Jeff Conklin: I think Rittel’s contribution is that he distinguished a new domain
of problem type, as opposed to, say, a new way of solving complex problems.
Problem wickedness is not about a higher degree of complexity, it is about a
fundamentally different kind of challenge to the design process, one that makes
solution secondary and problem understanding central. In this sense, the notion of
wicked problem isn’t describing something new; it is distinguishing something out
of nothing.
Like the story of the many words Inuits supposedly have for snow, the power of distinction
is that it separates out what is important (or urgent or dangerous) from an undifferentiated
unity. The distinction “wickedness” helped to explain why no level of linear thinking – no
matter how much data was considered or how brilliantly it was analyzed – would ever

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present a workable solution to some problems. (The parallel with Simon’s “ill-structured
problems” bears deeper study, but I think Rittel and Weber’s formulation is more radical
and far-sighted.)
From a historical perspective, in Rittel’s time he was trying to speak to and persuade
an audience that was firmly rooted in the rationalistic tradition, so he drew his distinction
of wicked problems purely in terms of the properties of the problem. You can read Rittel
and Weber’s “Dilemmas” paper and imagine that there is such a thing as a problem with
no people involved. Today we can view this as a shortcoming of the wicked problem
distinction as sketched in Dilemmas – it seems to happen in a vacuum. Almost forty
years later we can easily introduce the dimension of human interaction and the
subjectivity of design into the equation.
Most of us would agree that there’s no such thing as a problem without someone
who says “Something is wrong with X” or “I need something.” Literally, there’s no such
thing as a problem. To speak of a problem and to engage with solving it is to engage
in a conversation among stakeholders (people who care about the outcome). In my
thinking about wicked problems, I like to introduce the notion of “social complexity”
as inseparable from problem wickedness. There are no single stakeholder wicked
problems.
The practical challenge of dealing with a wicked problem is the tendency for the effort to
become fragmented and fail. But in the early 70’s, speaking the language of their peers,
Rittel and Webber brilliantly laid out a case for a new kind of problem that entailed a new
kind of approach. (A quick look at the large design problems of our day – “The Dig” in
Boston, the new Bay Bridge in San Francisco, the FAA’s decades-old effort to modernize
the air traffic control system – it is clear that there is still much to be learned about what
makes such large projects fail so regularly and spectacularly.)
For Rittel, the understanding that a problem was wicked lead naturally to the conclusion
that the problem solving process needed a new approach, a “second generation”
approach, one that involved dialogue among the stakeholders. He invented the Issue-
Based Information System (IBIS) specifically as a way to help the stakeholders manage
the issues and communicate rigorously and coherently about them. But he didn’t have
the technology at the time to make IBIS practical for project teams.
There’s another peculiarity about the notion of a wicked problem. In introducing the
concept of wicked problems to groups, I often have to wrestle with the concern that,
on the face of it, there is no “solution” for a wicked problem, at least not in the same
way that a tame problem has a solution. Some people regard this as a shortcoming
of the distinction “wickedness” . . . if there’s a problem, there must be a solution.
Of course, it is precisely this tension that is what distinguishes wicked problems.
You don’t so much “solve” a wicked problem as you help stakeholders negotiate
shared understanding and shared meaning about the problem and its possible solutions.
The objective of the work is coherent action, not final solution. Thus, Rittel and Webber’s
contribution was well ahead of its time, and is now finally helping us understand why
communication and collaboration, more even than creativity, keep emerging as critical
to success on large projects.

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Min Basadur: Other than to coin a phrase and raise awareness, I am unclear what
Rittel and Webber brought that was new. Osborn’s earlier writings alerted Americans
that they would fall behind other countries if they did not educate themselves and their
children to use their imaginations to think better. Einstein lamented something like “as
one gets older, one begins to realize that the chaos of the world is too great for anyone
to put order into it to any degree that makes any real difference.”
The Creative Problem Solving Institute’s annual events in Buffalo continually raised
hopes that really difficult problems such as poverty and peace could be managed if
people increased their problem solving skills deliberately. De Bono wrote book after
book entreating people to learn how to think more complexly. Einstein also discussed
the importance of problem definition versus problem solving which he said was often
only a mere exercise in mathematical skill. To view problems from new angles and
define them from new perspectives was a much more difficult thinking skill. To watch
the current U.S. government continue to hack away at complex problems in a single
minded “only one solution approach” and successfully sell it to the American people
indicates we have made almost no dents in human skill and understanding of complex
problem solving.
2
GK VanPatter: I see different perspectives emerging here. Let’s try some Rittel
declumping as we seem to have several threads of thought intertwined.
Jeff, I saw four key sentences in your comments about Rittel. You said:
• I think [1] Rittel’s contribution is that he distinguished a new domain of
problem type, as opposed to, say, a new way of solving complex problems.
• [2][3] Problem wickedness is not about a higher degree of complexity, it is
about a fundamentally different kind of challenge to the design process, [4]
one that makes solution secondary and problem understanding central.
• For Rittel, [5] the understanding that a problem was wicked lead naturally
to the conclusion that the problem solving process needed a new approach,
a "second generation" approach, one that involved dialogue among the
stakeholders.
• From a historical perspective, in Rittel’s time he was trying to speak to and
persuade [6] an audience that was firmly rooted in the rationalistic tradition, so
he drew his distinction of wicked problems purely in terms of the properties of
the problem.
In those four sentences, I see [1] a solution statement of sorts, [2] reference to the
naming of a problem type and [3] to what the problem type is not, [4] reference to
problem understanding as one aspect of difference, [5] general reference to a solution
path and [6] reference to an audience for which the solution was directed. Since our
focus here is sense-making, I am hoping we can do some unpacking and clarifying in
fact-finding mode before we move on.

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Let’s try this simple sense-making process logic:
If a “second generation” approach to problem solving was Rittel’s suggested solution,
let’s back up and ask ourselves: What was the problem condition to which this was a
solution from Rittel’s perspective? Where specifically (in what domain of practice) did
Rittel perceive the problem to exist? Who was the “rationalistic” audience to whom
Rittel was referring? And specifically, What was Rittel’s suggested “second generation”
process solution?
From both of your comments above, I am guessing that Jeff can best address these
questions.
Jeff Conklin: These are some good foundational questions you’ve asked. In my
thoughts here I am quoting from Rittel’s “On the Planning Crisis” paper (C1).
“What was the problem condition that this was a solution to from Rittel’s perspective?”
After citing some great successes of the then-prevalent “first generation” systems
analysis approach (e.g., NASA’s missions), Rittel points to a “hangover” (particularly
in the United States) concerning its possibilities and usefulness. This first generation
approach, briefly, had eight steps: understand the problem, gather information, analyze
the information, generate solutions, assess the solutions and pick one, implement it,
test it, and modify it. Rittel said, “In general, it can be said without exaggeration that the
classical systems approach has not yielded what was expected of it, and in a number of
large projects can only be considered” as a failure. He cites “cutbacks and cancellations
in the budgets of many of the large projects for applications of the systems approach”
and that “many of the think-tanks . . . which have been selling this approach . . . are in
very bad shape and are reducing their size.”
Thus the problem condition Rittel was addressing was this hangover from the euphoria
that no problem was so complex that it would not submit to the linear systems analysis
approach of the day. (By the way, I still encounter a dogged clinging to this “first
generation” approach, or the tatters of it, in many of the clients I work with. Some things
don’t change.)
Where specifically (in what domain of practice) did Rittel perceive the problem to exist?
Rittel starts this paper defining systems analysis to be “attacking problems of planning in
a rational, straightforward, systematic way.”
He mentions as examples NASA missions, big defense systems, scheduling of toll bridges,
production mix for a [manufacturing] company, “urban renewal, improving the environment,
in tackling the nutrition problem of mankind, the health systems, and even the penal and
law enforcement systems.” In other words, he was a true generalist in his approach to
design and planning.
Who was the “rationalistic” audience to whom Rittel was referring?
Rittel didn’t use the term “rationalistic.” I borrowed it from Winograd and Flores (C2).
Not having been a close associate of Rittel’s, I can only speculate about what audience

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he had in mind. Maybe someone else with better historical credentials can comment on
this. One small clue: Rittel’s “On the Planning Crisis” paper appeared in the Norwegian
journal Bedriftsøkonomen (about which I can’t find any information) and his “Dilemmas in
a General Theory of Planning” paper was in Policy Sciences. Who reads those journals?
What specifically was Rittel’s suggested “second generation” process solution?
In “On the Planning Crisis,” Rittel lists ten “principles of the systems approach of the
second generation,” which I summarize very briefly here. (The original is clearer, more
readable, and more compelling.)
1. Symmetry of ignorance: There are no specialists. The expertise which you need is
distributed over many people.
2. Maximized involvement: Nobody wants to be “planned at.” Make the people who will
be affected participants in the planning process.
3. Deontic premise: The basis of judgments is not scientific expertise, but rather “political
and general moral and ethical attitudes” . . . “a personal premise of the ‘ought-to-be’ nature”
of the problem solver. (This leads to the need for “methods which show some transparency
of the planning process.”)
4. Objectification: We must successfully exchange information about the foundations
of our judgment. ”If you can tell me why you say that Plan A is great, and I understand
your judgment, you have succeeded in objectifying your space of judgment to me.
And although I may not share your judgment and might not be convinced, I understand
you now.”
5. No scientific planning: Planning is “always political because of these deontic premises.”
6. Planner as midwife: The planner “helps to bring about problems rather than . . . offers
solutions to problems. He is a midwife of problems rather than an offerer of therapies.”
7. Skepticism: The planner “makes careful, seasoned repectlessness, i.e. casting doubt
on something, a virtue.”
8. Moderate optimism. The planner “knows that responsible planning is important, because
one cannot be rational. On the other hand, one is obliged to be rational, although it is
impossible.”
9. Conspiracy model of planning: “Because we cannot anticipate all the consequences
of our plans, every plan, every treatment of a wicked problem is a venture, if not an
adventure. Therefore, “let us share the risk” and find “accomplices who are willing to
embark on the problem with us.”
10. Argumentation: ”The planning process of wicked problem solving must be understood
as an argumentative process: one of raising questions and issues towards which you can
assume different positions, with the evidence gathered and arguments built for and against
these different positions.”

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This last principle sets the stage for Rittel’s invention of Issue-Based Information System
(IBIS), which in addition to wicked problems is Rittel’s other amazing contribution to the
world, and is the basis of my practice and teaching.
3
GK VanPatter: Thanks for that, Jeff. In sense-making terms I believe we still have
numerous apples, oranges and rabbits intertwined here. It might be that Rittel had a
few intertwined in his work.  Before we can get to discussing what works and what
does not in the real world today, let’s try to understand together what this is.
In our innovation sense-making work, we distinguish between these three basic things:
• Operating Context
• Tools (Process, Profiles, Frameworks, Others)
• Related Skills and Behaviors
In Rittel’s description of what he is referring to as the First Generation model, he is
describing a tool, an eight-step process. Yet, what he seems to be suggesting as a
Second Generation (Wicked Problem Solving) model is general Operating Context
descriptions and general Behavior descriptions. These are not equitable entities.
Let’s call this description of Rittel’s Generation One a rabbit.
This is a tool, a specific process logic:
• Understand the problem
• Gather information
• Analyze the information
• Generate solutions
• Assess the solutions and pick one
• Implement it
• Test it
• Modify it
The five descriptions below from Rittel’s Generation Two (Wicked Problem Solving)
model seem to be apples. They appear to be general Operating Context descriptions
or suggestions.
1. Symmetry of ignorance
2. Maximized involvement
3. Deontic premise
5. No scientific planning
9. Conspiracy model of planning
The five descriptions below from Rittel’s Generation Two (Wicked Problem Solving)
model seem to be oranges. They appear to be general Behavior descriptions or
suggestions.

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4. Objectification
6. Planner as midwife
7. Skepticism
8. Moderate optimism
10. Argumentation
There seems to be no reference to specific Tools in Rittel’s Generation Two (Wicked
Problem Solving) model. I guess the closest thing to a very general overview description
of process would be his 10. Argumentation.
In addition, it is not 100% clear if Rittel equated the above-outlined eight-step process
to be equivalent to what he described as the “Linear Systems Analysis Approach.”
Am I missing something here? Let me ask you two. From your perspectives, what is it
that Rittel is criticizing in Generation One? What is it that he is describing as Generation
Two?
Jeff Conklin: The challenge that Rittel faced in challenging the Generation One paradigm
is that deeply buried within the Generation One paradigm is an orientation to process as
a linear sequence. In its simplest form, this sequence is some derivation of a primitive
“scientific” process:
1. Gather the data,
2. Analyze the data,
3. Formulate a solution,
4. Implement the solution.
I use the acronym GAFI to describe it. Prior to the emergence in the high-tech world of
such system development approaches as cyclic development and “agile programming,”
virtually all problem solving and project management approaches were based on GAFI.
What makes GAFI paradigmatic is that in the face of any difficulties on a project, the
solution is always some variation of “do more GAFI” – gather more or different data,
analyze the data differently, reformulate the solution, or adjust the implementation
process.
Certainly the rabbit of the Generation One tool that Rittel invoked fits the GAFI model
(“understand the problem,” “gather information,” etc.).
If a problem is wicked, however, GAFI doesn’t work. That is essentially Rittel’s critique
of Generation One – its failure rate is too high.
No prescribed linear process will work with a wicked problem, in part because the design
effort must start producing robust solutions just to illuminate the hidden issues and flush
out the hidden stakeholders. Moreover, piling more resources into GAFI only makes the
situation worse, as key stakeholders are driven off to go look for an approach that
speaks to their understanding of the problem.
Rittel’s problem – and now my problem as well – is that from a Generation One
perspective Generation Two sounds like fluff. In my experience, the elements of Rittel’s
Generation Two approach sound naïve, undisciplined, and uninformed to Generation

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One practitioners. It certainly doesn’t address Generation One concerns like to how to
predict events and control the process.
Rittel understood that solving a wicked problem is more emergent and interactive than
any prescribed linear sequence of steps can deal with. It would be like a football coach
laying out the whole sequence of plays before the game started. That Is why Rittel’s
Generation Two process description does not prescribe a tool in the sense of a series of
steps. Instead he described an orientation to the design process, an operating context.
The tool Rittel offers is indeed argumentation, which by its nature is more like a chess
game than a game of dominos.
So my take on what Rittel was describing as a Generation Two approach to wicked
problems could be summed up as “Power Tools for Collaboration” because in addition
to the Generation One tools and skills, wicked problems demand tools and skills for
making multi-stakeholder conversations as efficient and effective as possible, particularly
in creating shared understanding and shared commitment among diverse and often hostile
stakeholders. In my experience, it is easy to underestimate the possibility of sabotage from
alienated stakeholders on a wicked problem.
Min Basadur: What Rittel describes as a First Generation model is virtually identical
to the Kepner and Tregoe (1964) approach documented in the book, The Rational
Manager (B1). Quite rightly, Rittel recognized that this approach is insufficient in that
it assumes the problem “as given” and that a linear analysis is sufficient. However, a
fundamental flaw in Rittel’s First Generation/Second Generation taxonomy seems to be
that he assumes that one can somehow a priori decide whether a specific problem is a
wicked one requiring highly skilled problem definition or a linear one which is already
well defined. This assumption is the basic cause of a huge amount of poor problem
solving in my experience.
The linear model that Rittel and Webber build their argument against is flawed in that it
misses the point that the problem that one is attempting to “understand” may already be
the wrong problem. Russ Ackoff (1979) fought with his rationally-minded colleagues in
Operations Research over this point for decades.
The first three steps of the model should be:
1. Find a problem and regard it as a fuzzy situation;
2. Gather information divergently, study it, and converge upon the vital few key facts
3. Define the problem(s)
Herbert Simon (1961) operationalized this concept of fuzzy situation by his identification
of two very different kinds of problems people encounter. The first kind is of a more
“programmed” nature. Solutions to this first kind are based on rigorous training on the
job or in school, experience, analytical skills and knowledge of rules and procedures pre-
designed to handle similar situations. The second kind is of a more “non-programmed”
nature. Non-programmed problems usually have never been encountered before and
have no pre-set rules and procedures to guide their handling. They are sometimes caused
by changing circumstances. Such problems are typically less structured, unpredictable,
and ambiguous as to “what is wanted.”

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The main challenge is to discover and define “what is wanted” because nobody really
knows. Often sensing, anticipating and defining the problem are more difficult than
solving it. Non-programmed problems require additional skills such as problem and
opportunity sensing, fact gathering, problem defining, creating and evaluating diverse
options, and implementing new things that have never been tried before. They require
the use of imagination, non-linear thinking and some risk-taking.
In the problem defining step, one must try to conceptualize the complete picture, with
the more strategic aspects linked to the more tactical aspects of the picture, followed
by convergence to the most critical sub-problems. In this step, whether or not the
problem is linear or wicked is discovered. The remainder of the steps then follows.
This suggested reordering of the steps above recognizes the typical human failing
of prematurely assuming that a problem is correctly defined as given or as first
perceived. Problem definition must take into account these human behavioral
deficiencies. The behavioral aspects of problem solving include attitudes, cognitive
skills and preferences, and communication, dialogue, and collaboration skills.
The ten points in Rittel’s Second Generation model address the fact that it is humans
who must define and solve problems and implement solutions, not machines, and they
often must do so in teams. It is often difficult for groups of people to think together
innovatively, especially in situations which are ill-defined and involve complex issues.
All of the human frailties in thinking and communicating thus must be dealt with to
achieve good problem solving work.
While the ten points in Rittel’s Second Generation model do begin to recognize the
human behavioral aspects of problem solving, they seem to lack recognizing the
importance of imagination, especially in problem definition. He also fails to identify
the concept of achieving constructive dialogue without argument (Basadur et al, 2000).
Basadur and Finkbeiner (1985) (B5) identified deferral of judgment, active divergence
and active convergence as three separate behavioral skills required to harness the
imagination in problem solving and to permit constructive dialogue without argument.
Elbing (1978) (B6) identified perceptual biases that interfere with problem analysis
and that often cause managers and other organizational members to act hastily and
to handle problems ineffectively. They tend to: evaluate before investigating, thus
precluding inquiry and a fuller understanding of the situation; equate new and old
experiences by searching for the familiar rather than the unique in a new problem;
approach problems at face value rather than ask questions to unearth reasons
underlying the problem’s more obvious aspects; direct decisions toward a single
goal, not recognizing that most problems really involve multiple goals that need
simultaneous handling; confuse symptoms and problems; overlook “unsolvable”
problems and concentrate instead on simpler concerns; and respond automatically
or act before thinking (sometimes called the “knee jerk” effect).
Basadur (1994) identified the following attitudinal, behavioral, perceptual, and cognitive
shortcomings. People wait for others to find problems for them to solve rather than take
the initiative to seek them out. Important problems that cross organizational, functional
and departmental lines are often avoided: “That’s not our problem.” People often make

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the premature assumption that “it can’t be done.” Too much knowledge of the particular
field causes them to experience “tunnel vision” and to lose childlike inquiry and
challenging of custom. Unsubstantiated assumptions are accepted as facts.
People are unwilling to take the time to discover the real facts, which might lead them
to refreshing new ways to define the problem. They emphasize problem solutions rather
than problem definitions, believing that “I already know what the problem is.” Failure to
observe and consider trivia and to investigate the obvious prevents individuals from
finding a balance between narrowing the problem too much (missing the “big picture”)
and broadening the problem too much (not breaking it down into small enough sub-
problems). This shortcoming can be further fuelled by people’s inability to sufficiently
use imagination to connect seemingly unrelated matters and synchronize logic,
sequencing and imagination.
Finally, and perhaps most important, Rittel’s approach to wicked problems is too
restrictive in another sense. Wicked or not, the word “problem” has been defined
in many ways. One way is as a gap between the present and some desired state of
affairs (Evans, 1991) (B7). However, the word “gap” can carry a positive, negative or
unknown connotation, providing three different views. A positive gap exists when a fine
opportunity is sensed for an innovative product or procedure which will move the state
of affairs upward, higher than the present baseline even when the present baseline is
satisfactory or the best seemingly possible. For example, Land (1972) (B8) attributed
his Polaroid camera invention to his ability to discover and define a problem where
seemingly no problem existed. A negative gap exists when there has been a drop in
performance below a baseline that needs to be corrected. An unknown gap exists when
our base state of affairs has been or soon will be wiped out by environmental changes
beyond our control.
I suppose that any of these three types of gaps could contain wicked problems or non-
wicked problems. In the end, however, the only safe way is not to prematurely decide if it
is one or the other, but instead defer judgment and define the problem after fact finding.
4
GK VanPatter: Min seems to be suggesting an alternate model. In several ways it is a
suggestion that strikes to the heart of the entanglements here. By that I mean it suggests
that other models existed and exist outside of what is depicted by Rittel as Generation
One and Generation Two. I believe this is an important piece of the puzzle. More on this
momentarily.
I can see we are rapidly entering some mind-bending terrain here. Of all the
innovation-related subjects (historical and current) explored during the many NextD
Journal conversations completed to date, the conceptual complexities that surround
Horst Rittel and wicked problems have to be among the most discombobulated and
complicated. I am so glad that the two of you are here to help make sense of this
complexity. 
Be patient with me for a moment while I try to do some declumping. I believe we still
have numerous oranges mixed with rabbits here.

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Anyone doing a Google search of the term “wicked problems” today will find 1,420,000
references. At least on a superficial level, the terminology of wicked problems seems
to be everywhere right now. In the marketplace and in academia, we see professionals
from various disciplines picking up on the terminology of wicked problems by referencing
the term. Some consulting firms are even incorporating it into corporate branding
messages.
Part of the reason for the current popularity of the term itself is likely because there
is finally growing recognition that the pressing challenges facing our planet are
increasingly complex and fuzzy. Media coverage of global warming, films such as Al
Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and popular new books such as Alex Steffen’s World
Changing / A Users Guide to the 21st
Century are helping to raise awareness among
the public of the global-scale challenges facing humanity. For better or worse, the term
“wicked problems” has become a catchy headline phrase, synonymous with a general
awareness among the public that these kinds of looming large-scale problems exist.
In parallel to rising problem awareness, various communities, including the business
community and the design community, are seeking to become more actively involved
in helping to address large-scale social and other complex challenges like never before.
One of the reasons why we are having this conversation is because we recognize that
there is a huge difference between acknowledging that highly complex fuzzy challenges
exist and having the tools, methods and skills to grapple with such challenges in tangible
ways.
With this in mind and in the interest of sense-making, what I would like to do here is
start to separate the term “wicked problems” from the notion of tools, methods and
skills. Obviously describing problem types and having tools and skills to address them
are three different things.
So far in this conversation I can see at least five interconnected layers that combine
to create a rather mind-bending effect for any of our readers trying to figure out what
exactly is going on:
1. There are geographic school of thought differences.
2. There are background/discipline perspective differences.
3. There are numerous time-related disconnects.
4. I believe there are also several instances of logic creep.
5. I can see at least one strawman argument construction as well
Without too much trouble we could burn up the remainder of our conversation time
by focusing on any one of those five streams. Some might be more valuable to our
knowledgeable readers then others.
All things considered, I would like to do something difficult here and try to reach into the
foundation of the complexity; otherwise our readers will not be well served by the three
of us getting together. It occurs to me that “1. geographic school of thought differences”
not only connects to our conversation here, but also underlies much of what occurs in
the literature after Rittel’s Dilemmas appeared in 1973. Since this represents relatively
unchartered territory, taking this route might be a bit of a bumpy road, but let’s try it.

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It is no secret that anyone researching the history of creative problem solving,
innovation and/or design methods will eventually end up encountering two central
historical thought leadership universes that seldom seem to acknowledge each other.
In Rittel’s writings, such omission can be found in the sense that he often reflects a
surprisingly narrow (some might say convenient) understanding of creative problem
solving and never seems to acknowledge that there was, at the time of his writing, a
whole alternate universe of creative problem solving thought leadership outside of the
narrow definition against which he chose to build his argument. We call this not so
little hiccup the “Buffalo-Berkeley divide” It is essentially a gulf between two thought
leadership universes.
Of course, the parallel universe unacknowledged in Rittel’s 1973 writing was referenced
earlier in this conversation by Min. This universe was/is located on the East Coast of
the United States and centered on the Creative Education Foundation that was founded
by Alex Osborn within the University of Buffalo in 1954. It is in that universe where
numerous thought leaders had for many years prior to the appearance of Dilemmas
been working in the realm of human–centered applied creativity and creative problem
solving, specifically on forms of process that were much different than traditional
engineering or those of traditional science. No reflection of this parallel universe
can be found in Rittel and Webber’s Dilemmas. Instead what we see in Dilemmas
is an argument constructed against a specific depiction that is then artfully framed
sequentially as Generation One and Generation Two.
In the literature and in real life, the Buffalo-Berkeley universe divide seems to work in
both directions and remains with us today. The two universes have their own thought
leaders and often have blind eyes to each other. For example, I have in front of me a
400+-page volume entitled The Creative Problem Solving Source Book / A Fifty Year
Digest of Proven Innovation Processes, edited by Sidney J. Parnes and published in
1992. For those aligned with the East Coast thought leadership universe, this is an
important historical book spanning fifty years of innovation process-related history.
It contains no reference to Horst Rittel, Melvin Webber, wicked problems, wicked
problem solving or Berkeley.
For reasons unknown, these two centers of thought leadership seldom appear in
each other’s histories. With the exception of Herbert Simon and a few others who
are recognized in both universes, each has its own distinct set of officially recognized
historical characters, as well as those who subsequently build on their foundations.
While numerous commonalities exist between the two universes, including an interest
in being human-centered, they each had/have very different roots, beliefs and precisions.
At the core of the Buffalo universe is the belief that all humans have the capacity to be
creative. At the core of the Berkeley universe is the belief that humans have conflicting
interests and objectives.
No meaningful conversation can occur related to the history and state of
applied creativity and creative problem solving process mastery in the U.S. without
acknowledgement of these two universes. Unfortunately, much of the wicked problems
literature, historic and contemporary, is fatally flawed in this regard. There is a certain
irony in that much of the subsequent literature oversimplifies context by omitting half
the historical picture while simultaneously stressing the need to recognize complexity!

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With sense-making as our goal, here at NextD we are focused on the future, but we
recognize that futures are often built on the past. Since the Buffalo-Berkeley universe
divide cascades forward into much of the contemporary literature, it continues to play
a significant but largely unrecognized role in writings and discussions regarding applied
creativity, creative problem finding/solving, organizational transformation, innovation,
strategic design and wicked problems even today. Perhaps here in this conversation
we might open a small window between these two universes.
In order to better understand the level of Rittel wicked problems complexity that
cascades forward into the realm of today, I am going to ask you to take a look now at
three pictures. Picture A is a brief look at Rittel and Webber in context and in action
doing problem finding. Picture B and C are examples from contemporary literature
of others building on Rittel’s logic constructions and/or the unacknowledged Buffalo-
Berkeley universe divide.
PICTURE A: Created by Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber in 1973
Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber were at the time of their most well-known writing
based in Berkeley at the University of California. They were active in the realms of
city planning and what was at that time the emerging science of design. Horst Rittel
had previously taught at Ulm, a leading highly experimental design school in Germany
that was primarily physical object bound. The types of challenges focused on at Ulm
were relatively framed and the scale was primarily products and product interfaces.
When Rittel and Webber wrote Dilemmas in 1973, Rittel was a professor of Science
of Design and Webber a professor of City Planning at the University of California where
they were working on city/urban planning-related issues. They became interested in the
interconnected fuzzy social challenges that are embedded in any kind of large-scale
urban planning exercise. This was the door through which they entered the arena of
highly complex fuzzy problem solving. It is likely that the alternate patterns they were
aware of at that time are revealed in their analysis of existing urban planning conditions.
It is no secret that Dilemmas is chock full of criticism of the urban planning approaches
that existed at that time.
At its core, their often-sited Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning is essentially
a differencing manifesto rather then a sense-making one.
Underneath the theoretical terminologies can be found at its most basic level a rather
straightforward suggestion that engineering and science have failed and that a new
kind of approach to urban planning-related challenges is required. It is primarily against
the depiction of their competitors (i.e., traditional engineering and science) that Rittel
and Webber do their differencing. To explain that differencing, they created the linear
taxonomy of Generation One and Generation Two.
Where the picture starts to get more complicated is when Rittel and Webber begin moving
from the specific to the general. By that I mean they begin Dilemmas focused on urban
planning and then seem to extrapolate into the larger realm of creative problem solving in
general. I think it is interesting to note that in subsequent years much of the building on the
wicked problems model by others jumps off from, not the specifics of urban planning, but
rather the more generalized extrapolations. In the years since it first appeared,

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considerable additional extrapolations have been built on the extrapolations found in
Dilemmas. Many of those who seek to articulate differences between engineering, science
and design still site the Dilemmas piece. Those differencing efforts often overlook the
Buffalo-Berkeley universe divide. Those narratives, most often being driven by academics,
typically overlook the harsh reality that the innovation-enabling marketplace today contains
not two or three, but rather a multitude of disciplines and players.
If we apply our sense-making logic to Dilemmas, what emerges is the realization
that there are really two parts to it. In the first part, Rittel and Webber are engaged in
problem formulation and in the second, part solution formulation. Looking at Dilemmas
proportionally, it becomes clear that most of the text (by that I mean most of their
expressed thoughts) are focused on the former: formulating problems with much less
detail around the latter – formulating solution options. Following are a few examples of
Rittel and Webber engaged in problem formulation.
“The kinds of problems that planners deal with – societal problems – are inherently
different from the problems that scientists and perhaps some classes of engineers
deal with. Planning problems are inherently wicked.
The search for scientific bases for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail
because of the nature of these problems. They are “wicked problems” whereas science
has developed to deal with “tame problems.
The problems that scientists and engineers have usually focused upon are mostly
“tame” or “benign” ones. As an example, consider a problem of mathematics, such as
solving an equation; or the task of an organic chemist in analyzing the structure of some
unknown compound; or that of the chess player attempting to accomplish checkmate in
five moves. For each, the mission is clear. It is clear in turn whether or not the problems
have been solved. Wicked problems, in contrast, have neither of these clarifying traits,
and they include nearly all public policy issues – whether the question concerns the
location of a freeway, the adjustment of a tax rate, the modification of school curricula
or the confrontation of crime.
The difficulties attached to rationality are tenacious, and we have so far been unable to
get untangled from its web.
This is partly because the classical paradigm of science and engineering – the paradigm
that has underlain modern professionalism – is not applicable to the problems of open
societal systems. One reason why the public has been attacking the social professions,
we believe, is that cognitive and occupational styles of the professions –mimicking the
cognitive style of science and the occupational style of engineering – have just not
worked on a wide array of social problems. The lay customers are complaining because
planners and other professionals have not succeeded in solving the problems they
claimed they could solve. We shall want to suggest that the social professions were
misled somewhere along the line into assuming they could be applied scientists –
that they could solve problems in ways scientists can solve their sorts of problems.
The error has been a serious one.
During the industrial age, the idea of planning, in common with the idea of
professionalism, was dominated by the pervasive idea of efficiency. Drawn from

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18th
century physics, classical economics and the principle of least-means, efficiency
was seen as a condition in which a specified task could be performed with low inputs of
resources. That has been a powerful idea. It has long been the guiding concept of civil
engineering, the scientific management movement, much of contemporary operations
research, and it still pervades modern government and industry. When attached to the
idea of planning, it became dominating there, too. . . .Because it was fairly easy to get
consensus on the nature of problems during the early industrial period, the task could
be assigned to the technically skilled, who in turn could be trusted to accomplish the
simplified end-in-view. Or, in the more workaday setting, we could rely upon the
efficiency expert to diagnose a problem and then to solve it, while simultaneously
reducing the resource inputs into whatever it was we were doing.
By now we are beginning to realize that one of the most intractable problems is that of
defining problems (of knowing what distinguishes an observed condition from a desired
condition) and of locating problems (finding where in the complex casual networks the
trouble really lies.”
Rittel, Horst and Webber, Melvin M. (1968), Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning.
Before we move on and look at Pictures B and C, I want to ask you for your
impressions of this logic. Does the problem formulation in Picture A make sense from
your perspective? Does Picture A represent a strong foundation to build generalized
principles and approaches to creative problem/opportunity finding/solving?
Jeff Conklin: I would like to start my response by making a confession. I have
not studied the field of design theory. I have read a few books, but I am far from an
expert in the evolution of design theory and practice. I stumbled into the field in the
mid 1980’s when I was doing research in new tools and approaches for software
engineering. The head of the research program, Les Belady, had known Horst Rittel
at some previous time in their professional lives. Belady invited Rittel to come to
Austin and tell us about his IBIS (Issue Based Information System) structure for
design conversations.
I still remember Rittel’s talk that day as a turning point in my career, because
in addition to providing us with a simple structure for capturing design rationale,
Rittel gave us a way to understand why the software engineering profession was
so fixated on the linear "waterfall model,” and why that model so consistently failed.
Large software systems were wicked problems, but the software engineering kept
treating them as tame!
Our excitement with Rittel’s ideas was bolstered by independent cognitive science
research suggesting that the design process was "opportunistic,” not linear. Since then,
I have given hundreds of talks on the concept of wicked problems and opportunity-
driven problem solving to a wide range of audiences. In most cases, the feedback I
get is a sense of excitement and liberation, particularly among seasoned professionals.
The problems and failures of projects they have worked on all their lives are not simply
due to incompetence and mismanagement, they are due in part to slavish organizational
devotion to a linear, "scientific" process. Ironically, the waterfall model is still alive and
well in the practice of software development, and the message about wicked problems
as relevant as ever.

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I apologize for the personal story, but I want to be clear that my credentials to speak
about design theory come only from my personal experience, mostly in a high-tech
context for the past 20 years. I was not aware of the Buffalo school of thought. I’m just
learning about it in this conversation.
That said, let me try to respond to the question, "Does the problem formulation in
Picture A make sense from your perspective?" I am assuming that Picture A is a
summary of the "Dilemmas/Berkeley" view of the challenge for the design field.
As a practitioner in the field, I find that Picture A still makes sense. For me the
distinction between Generation One and Generation Two anticipated and points to
the paradigmatic shift from "modern" to "post-modern" thought. As I said earlier, "Rittel
understood that solving a wicked problem is more emergent and interactive that any
prescribed linear sequence of steps can deal with." A Generation Two approach to
wicked problems would include tools and skills for making conversations among diverse
stakeholders more effective and successful. I imagine that the readers of this journal
are quite sophisticated, and that the Dilemmas characterization of Generation One may
seem exaggerated or even disingenuous. In my experience, however, Generation One
is not a strawman. It is a real world view held by many senior managers and executives
and it shapes how they plan, organize, resource, and run projects.
Indeed, in this regard I am struck with one part of Basadur’s response to the previous
question.
He seems to accept that the linear model is flawed, but his adjustment of the model
is to add some sophistication to the problem definition phase, so that you define the
problem "correctly" before proceeding with a linear solution formulation process.
This appears to be a classic Generation One approach. If the difficulty with a linear
design process is problem definition, then you simply work harder and better at
defining the problem precisely before proceeding to the solution.
In contrast, the direction in software development practice is more representative of
a Generation Two approach. You accept that you won’t understand the problem until
you’ve created a solution, so you start writing code and building and testing prototypes
very quickly in short iterative cycles with users deeply involved in the process from the
beginning. The problem formulation evolves and emerges in parallel with the solution
formulation. That’s what makes the process non-linear.
"Does Picture A represent a strong foundation to build generalized principles and
approaches to creative problem/opportunity finding/solving?"
Again, I am out of my league in addressing this question. I certainly can’t comment
on how the Berkeley school compares to the Buffalo school in providing a foundation.
My sense is that Dilemmas is best understood as a manifesto, and Generation One as
a characterization of a kind of bias towards rationality and blindness to social complexity
and the politics of design. As you say, GK, it is a differencing paper, and so has probably
had a polarizing effect in the field of design. And, as you say, it was long on problem
formulation and short on solution formulation. The Berkeley school’s solution formulation
appears to be "argumentation,” and that’s about it.

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But from a post-modern perspective, the idea of focusing on the conversations and
relationships among the stakeholders is everything. Rittel’s IBIS was a significant
contribution to the art of dealing effectively with social complexity, perhaps even
building toward a science of creating shared understanding among stakeholders.
The term "argumentation" is unfortunate. It suggests people angrily shouting at each
other. I don’t use the term much. But in an academic context it is a branch of rhetoric
and can be defined as "the interactive process of forming reasons and drawing
conclusions to resolve some matter” (D. O’Keefe, “Two Concepts of Argument,”
Journal of the American Forensic Association, Vol. 13, pp. 121-128, 1977) Rittel’s
IBIS is a simple rhetorical grammar for inquiry and deliberation that fits nicely with
the moves being made in design and problem solving conversations.
The intention is to help the participants communicate more clearly and effectively
about complex sets of issues. The IBIS approach does not focus on creativity or
innovation. Rather, it assumes that if you remove the barriers to communication
and shared understanding then creativity shows up quite naturally, along with all
of the other aspects of intelligence, both individual and collective intelligence.
Min Basadur: You are absolutely right, GK, that there are others who have long
studied wicked problems or whatever subject of which wicked problems is a sub-
set or vice versa. For example, if you enter “creative problem solving” into a Google
search, you find 4,150,000 references. If you enter “creativity,” you find 67,600,00; for
“creative thinking,” you find 74,200,200; for ”problem solving,” you find 78,800,000;
for “complexity” you find 93,900,000, and you will find 1,060,000,000 for “design.”
Bottom line, there are numerous people and groups independently studying this
subject or subjects.
Because the subject is so ill-defined and jargon-laden, it is virtually impossible for
anyone or any of the various groups to corral all of this thinking. The various thinkers
in this field also have all they can handle to push their concepts past other academics
who are engrossed in their own pet projects, most of which concern much better defined
fields of endeavor by the way.
I think what we are talking about is really the subject of “thinking about thinking.” Most of
education at every level up until recently has focused on “content” – learning facts or
what is known about a particular subject, say biology. More recently, there has been an
emergence of interest in focusing on “process,” that is HOW we think instead of WHAT
we think.
Most people never “think about thinking.” Those who do usually discover the subject just
as Rittel and Webber apparently did: by experiencing the real world and discovering that
the people working in a particular field with them are using thinking methods that fall way
short of what is required. They happened to be wrapped up in the particular content of
urban planning. I had the same experience when I joined Procter and Gamble’s product
development department after completing my degree in Engineering Physics. When you
join a large successful organization as a young green person, you naturally assume that
everyone really knows what is to be done and your job is to learn those things as quickly
as possible. What you discover is that the organization is really only a collection of
individuals doing the best that they can with what they have at the present time.

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I ran into many excellent thinkers in my work, but was sometimes frustrated in getting
accomplished what I considered very simple problem solving when I ran into what I later
began to understand as “linear thinking.” These thinkers were by and large excellent
engineers, but many had little interest in the “larger picture.” Their interest lay more in
analyzing and optimizing a small piece of the picture and only that part that concerned
their own “silo” (department or sub-group). I began to sense only later that I was more
of a “horizontal thinker” in an organization where success had depended on “vertical
thinking,” i.e., executing a successful formula consistent from the top down.
GK, this is what you termed moving from the specific to the general. The only
way I became interested in the subject of “thinking about thinking” was by becoming
AWARE of its existence and importance by my discovery experiences. I later began
to slowly realize and comprehend that many outstanding colleagues at P&G had
become successful by executing the well-defined process they had learned and been
trained in for selling or marketing or manufacturing or R & D, etc. When they ran into
a totally different situation, such as managing entering into an entirely new business,
they sometimes failed because they had never been in (or learned from) any important
situations requiring what I later began to understand as “strategic thinking.” That is,
figuring out WHAT needed to be done differently, not HOW to execute the old formula
that had worked well in past routine situations as they climbed the ladder.
An expression that comes to mind is the “definition of basic research.” “Basic research is
what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing.” To be an excellent, more complete
thinker, that is to be able to grapple with wicked problems, requires the ability to recognize
and be aware that that you may not know what you are doing before running off and doing
something (more often than not, a “wrong thing”). Once I discovered that there were real
gaps in the ability to think among very smart people, I became excited about being able
to make a meaningful contribution to something important, and have made a career out
of attempting to simplify this fuzzy field. I have tried to build a few simple frameworks to
integrate the key unifying principles most of the approaches and models all converge upon.
So here goes. In a nut shell, there are two kinds of problems: simple and complex
(wicked, if you like). The two co-exist in every field of endeavor. Complex problems
require substantial definition and often across numerous dimensions. Simple problems
need little or no definition or redefinition. Some people try to explain this difference by
referring to and stereotyping specific fields of endeavor. For example, engineering is often
seen as preoccupied by responding to well-defined problems with optimized solutions.
This may be true in many cases, but great engineers are often faced with much fuzzier
tasks and also have the ability to redefine even supposedly clear-cut given situations for
breakthrough advances.
Engineering work often requires the ability to manage complex projects in uncharted
or even unknown territory involving multiple stakeholders; hidden challenges; fuzzy,
incomplete, incorrect information; and self serving interests to name a few. Scoping out
a new engineering project is one of the most complex and wicked problems one will
encounter. This challenge is very similar in nature to challenges of trying to get issues
of public policy, political prioritization, urban planning, climate change, poverty, etc. even
mobilized, never mind resolved.
Real science is focused on understanding complex, unknown situations. My colleagues

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and I call this the conceptualization portion of the creative process (or the creative
problem solving process, or the innovation process, or the wicked problem solving
process, etc.). Einstein said that the real essence of science is the creative formulation
of problems and looking at them from new angles. Solving problems already formulated
was relatively easy, an exercise of mere mathematical skill.
I think it is a gross oversimplification to say one field or another is more absorbed with
complex or simple problems than another. In addition to what I mentioned above, to
say so would violate the fundamental truth that complex problems tend to be multi-
disciplinary and multi-dimensional. However, there are additional gaps in our grasp of
“thinking about thinking.” There is more to the creative process than the conceptualizing
and optimizing stages discussed above.
5
GK VanPatter: Following are two examples of contemporary literature that seek to
connect into and build on the wicked problems model. Picture B and Picture C were
created seventeen years and thirty-three years after Dilemmas in a General Theory
of Planning was first published.
PICTURE B: Created by Dr. Richard Buchanan in 1990.
“The “wicked problems” approach was formulated by Horst Rittel in the 1960’s when
design methodology was a subject of intense interest. A mathematician, designer
and former teacher at the Hochschule fur Gestaltung Ulm [School], Rittel sought an
alternative to linear, step-by-step model of the design process being explored by many
designers and design theorists. Although there are many variations of the linear model,
its proponents hold that the design process is divided into two distinct phases – problem
definition and problem solution. Problem definition is an analytic sequence in which
the designer determines all of the elements of the problem and specifies all of the
requirements that a successful solution must have. Problem solution is a synthetic
sequence in which various requirements are combined and balanced against each
other, yielding a final plan to be carried into production.
In the abstract, such a model may appear attractive because it suggests a methodological
precision that is, in its key features, independent from the perspective of the individual
designer. In fact, many scientists and business professionals, as well as some designers,
continue to find the idea of a linear model attractive, believing that it represents the only
hope for a “logical” understanding of the design process. However, some critics were
quick to point out two obvious weaknesses. One, the actual sequence of design thinking
and decision making is not a simple linear process, and two, the problems addressed by
designers do not, in actual practice, yield to any linear analysis and synthesis yet proposed.
Rittel argues that most of the problems addressed by designers are “wicked” problems.

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As described in the first published report of Rittel’s idea, wicked problems are a class of
social system problem which are ill-formulated, where information is confusing, where
there are many clients and decision makers with conflicting values, and where the
ramifications in the whole system are confusing.
This is an amusing description of what confronts designers in every new situation.
But most important, it points toward a fundamental issue that lies behind practice –
the relationship between determinacy and interderminancy in design thinking.
The linear model of design thinking is based on determinate problems which have
definitive conditions. The designer’s task is to identify those conditions precisely and
then calculate a solution. In contrast, the wicked problems approach suggest that there
is a fundamental interderminancy in all but the most trivial problems – problems where
Rittel suggests, the “wickedness” has already been taken out to yield determinate or
analytic problems.
To understand what this means it is important to recognize that indeterminacy is quite
different from undetermined.
Indeterminacy implies that there are no definitive conditions or limits to design problems.
This is evident, for example, in the ten properties that Rittel initially identified in 1972.”
Buchanan, Richard (1990), Wicked Problems in Design Thinking, The Idea of Design,
pp. 13-15, MIT Press.
PICTURE C: Created by Dr. Klaus Krippendorf in 2006.
“The difference between science and design needs to be addressed. [Herbert]
Simon states it in simple terms. “The natural sciences are concerned with how things
are . . . design, on the other hand, is concerned with how things ought to be, with
devising artifacts to attain goals” (Simon 1969/2001:114). The fundamental problem
that designers are to solve, he suggests, is how to change an existing situation into a
preferred one. Defining design as problem solving is common, but commits designers to
a technical rationality that is at home largely in engineering. It conveniently bypasses the
qualifications suggested above. Simon’s background in computer engineering and early
cognitive science leads him to distinguish science and design in terms of the logic they
respectfully employ. In the natural sciences, he observes, the standard propositional and
predicate calculi, which are able to state or deny factual truths, serve their researchers
well. Designers, however, are concerned not with factual truths, but with what should
be. Replacing “is” with “should be” makes all the difference. “Should” statements are
imperatives, and the logic underlying the design discourse. Simon conceives synthesis
as enumerating alternative solutions and evaluation as using optimizing techniques to
identify the best or a satisfactory solution. This process manifests his technical rationality
in action. It works where problems are clearly defined and the solution space is finite,

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which often is the case in engineering.
Simon’s technical rationality extended simple engineering conceptions to larger
design problems in defense systems, R & D efforts, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) projects and operations research. But it started to falter when
applied to city planning, the design of corporate strategies, and even consumer goods.
Not only does Simon’s rationality assume consensus on what is to be accomplished,
it also takes for granted that the outcome of the design process can be implemented
by decree, similar to how the components of a mechanical system are installed.
Technical rationality emerged as the mode of operation in the industrial era, is typical
of how engineering problems are solved, and is still practiced in tight organizations –
in the military, for example, or in bureaucracies where users can be trained, correct use
can be enforced, and dissenting voices are unheard of. Technical rationality is at home
in coherent social hierarchies. But it fails when applied to problems that involve people
as informed agents, in heterarchical forms of organizations like markets. In cities, for
example, design typically improves the lives of some at the expense of others.
Interest groups may be looking for particular outcomes and try to define the problem to
their advantage. In the marketplace, consumers make informed choices that cannot be
understood in mechanical terms.
Under these conditions, technical-rational problem solving breaks down and design
must proceed differently.
Horst Rittel (Rittel and Webber, 1984) made the shift from top-down technical problem
solving to a conception of design that accommodates the participation of stakeholders.
Working with planners of large social systems, he soon recognized that Simon-like
problem solving could not provide guidance where intelligent humans – individuals,
organizations, and communities – with interests in a design are involved. He called
problems of a technical nature “tame” problems in contrast with what he identified as
“wicked” problems, and he anticipated several of the issues that The Semantic Turn
is now addressing. For example, he observed that in the social realm, problems are
never solved (and thereafter forgotten). They more likely involve conflicts that may be
resolved by consensus – only to resurface later on as other kinds of conflicts, calling for
further resolutions, and so on. In the social domain, stakeholders typically invest in the
outcomes of design processes – in their own future. Coming to a consensus on what the
wicked problem is is the problem. His [Rittel’s] design conception moves argumentation
into its center, making language and discourse the ultimate arbiter of what is desirable,
achievable and will be done.”
Krippendorf, Klaus (2006), The Semantic Turn, A New Foundation for Design, pp. 26-27,
CRC Press.

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I appreciate your patience with this lengthy text and these difficult questions. In these
three brief excerpts one can get a glimpse of the entanglements cascade that exists
today around wicked problems. Does any of this make sense to you?
I am sure our readers would be curious to hear each of your expert perspectives on the
logic of Picture B and Picture C.
Jeff Conklin: Picture B tries to get at the issue of indeterminacy of problem conditions,
and suggests that Rittel’s problem wickedness has more to do with the conditions
being indeterminate, not just simply undetermined (as in not yet determined). This view
again reveals how far ahead of his time Rittel was. He was really quite post-modern in
his thinking. I think if he were still alive he would say that conditions (or parameters) of
problem formulation are at least under-determined, if not undetermined. And again, he
is trying to identify an industrial age approach (a Generation One approach) to problem
formulation that implicitly says:
1. There is a problem
2. The dimensions/conditions of the problem can be determined/defined
3. Thus the problem can be objectively defined
From a post-modern perspective, there is no such "thing" as a problem. Problems are
not things which can be objectively known and defined. A problem statement is an
interpretation of a situation by a human observer. Problems and problem definitions
only come into existence because someone declares a condition to be a problem.
The conditions of the problem are thus a subjective matter.
In short, problem conditions are "undetermined" exactly because they are a matter of
language and interpretation. What the problem is depends on who you ask. Picture B
suggests that we can treat social problems like physics problems, by carefully carving
out what is known (i.e., determinate) about the problem. I prefer to work from the
assumption that a group of stakeholders can negotiate a problem formulation that
they all agree to work from, but, as a statement in language, it doesn’t make any
sense to describe that description as indeterminate versus undetermined.
Picture C makes more sense to me. I think that’s how Rittel would talk about problem
wickedness today. Picture C refocuses the design process on human interaction as
informed agents embedded in a context of interests, concerns, and meaning making.
Problems are neither formulated nor solved in any final sense. The "rightness" of a
problem formulation is determined by the range of stakeholders who are willing to
come together in that context for dialogue.
Argumentation – as a kind of rigorous discourse process – becomes a powerful tool
in mitigating some of the most dysfunctional patterns of stakeholder interactions when
the stakes are high and the number of stakeholders large. Argumentation supports the
intellectual integrity required for the creation of common ground. Creativity, insight, and
innovation emerge spontaneously as the florescent by-product of shared understanding
and shared commitment.

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Min Basadur: We know from our collaboration work with your NextDesign Leadership
Institute that times have radically changed in the design industries. In earlier eras,
business clients would often tell designers exactly what they wanted and designers
would figure out how to execute the assignment. I know that you describe this as the
“brief business” where clients write up and frame challenges in the form of “design
briefs” that are then addressed by designers. Considering the rising complexities of the
modern world, it is not surprising to see a significant shift underway in many industries,
including design. We understand that increasingly today design clients DON’T know
what they want. They know they need something, but that’s it. More importantly, clients
arrive thinking that they know what they want, but it turns out to be not the right thing
at all. As you have been pointing out for some time in this journal, this represents a
significant shift and great opportunity for designers.
This shift in client needs requires new design skills, e,g., helping clients figure out what
they should want. In other words, formulate the right challenge, (or reformulate the initial
assumed challenge) for the client, and let the solution fall into place. This can only be
done well by involving the client in the process, since the real [content] knowledge
resides within the client.
VanPatter (2002) suggested here in this publication that the traditional skills and tools
of design have historically been engaged after challenges had been framed, often by
others. As in my story about managers at Procter & Gamble, if a designer’s old role was
to figure out HOW, but now the demands of their new role includes helping others figure
out the WHAT, it is likely that new skills will be required.
From my perspective, Albert Einstein was not only the consummate scientist of our time,
but also that he understood design perfectly. He held that problem definition is much
more important than problem solving for true advances in design as well as in science.
This leads me to your questions regarding Pictures B and C. Anyone who says
problem definition is an analytical sequence truly is out of touch with the real world.
Questions of ownership and motivation and open mindedness and honesty muddle
the waters tremendously. If you cannot elicit the real and sometimes buried facts
around these issues, there is no chance you will come up with what "should be.”
Problem definition is anything but an analytical sequence in design or any other
activity involving problems requiring creativity. Often missed by academics engaged
in argument construction is the recognition that analytical problem solving is different
from creative problem solving.
Only for purely analytical problems is problem definition rational and sequential.
This usually means finding the root cause of a well defined beginning situation for which
concrete facts exist or can be uncovered to pinpoint what went wrong. Once discovered,
the root cause can be eliminated by an optimal (or sub-optimal) solution to restore things
to their original state. No imagination is required for this kind of problem definition. This is
called analytical problem solving.
Questions of ownership, motivation, open mindedness, conflicting objectives and
interests, ambiguity, and honesty do not normally muddle the waters nearly as much in
analytical problem solving as they do in creative problem solving, especially complex or
wicked problems. So I agree, of course, with Rittel that problems faced by designers are

Page 26 of 29
in this sense often wicked problems. Smart designers (and consultants, leaders, and
other change facilitators) involve their clients directly in problem definition work, digging
out the key facts, feelings, emotions and buried desires and challenges of the clients
(stakeholders) and getting them to reach crystal clear consensus on the problem(s) –
that is, the challenges and opportunities they are really trying to solve or to which they
aspire. The imagination is critical here.
In Picture C, the author states: Designers, however, are concerned not with factual
truths, but with what should be. Replacing “is” with “should be” makes all the
difference. “Should” statements are imperatives, and the logic underlying the design
discourse.
From our perspective, the term “should be” is prescriptive. In the challenge defining work
that we do, we use “might be” not “should be.”
This permits divergence to be maintained until sufficient understanding is reached to
create a collaborative array of significant, mutually acceptable challenges.
In our work, we involve clients in co-creating aspirational statements of challenge (“How
might we. . . ?”) to create the “preferred” situation that Simon (B9) seems to be talking
about.
While the Picture A Rittel model centers around activity described as “argumentation,”
we have a very different point of view. We recommend what is likely the opposite
of “argumentation,” that “nurturance of different points of view” is the secret. In our
experience, creativity in thinking up exciting challenges includes accepting all important
ones (to the stakeholders) for big picture mapping which then relates all the critical
challenges together (B10). This big picture thus honors all points of view as legitimate
and permits distinct individual challenges to be selected (and sometimes redefined).
It permits “expansion of the pie” (B11) and facilitates creative solutions that satisfy what
formerly seemed to be conflicting objectives. This co-creation approach is very different
than coming in and announcing to people what “should be.”
There is something else here, too. In the final paragraph of Picture A above you quoted
Rittel and Webber’s Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning (1973). They said:
By now we are beginning to realize that one of the most intractable problems is that
of defining problems (of knowing what distinguishes an observed condition from a
desired condition) and of locating problems (finding where in the complex casual
networks the trouble really lies.
Here’s the question: What happens when there is no “desired condition”? What happens
when no one “observes” a condition?
Life would be much easier if formulating wicked problems was confined to people
handing us an “observed condition,” and also handing us a “desired condition” and
asking us to get consensus on a definition of how to get to the second from the first.
This is an incomplete conception of problem formulation. My research suggests a
more complete conception of problem formulation and wicked problem defining and
solving in the form of a four-stage cognitive process model.

Page 27 of 29
Our research indicates that the successful leaders of the 21st
century, be they designers
or politicians or managers or concerned persons of any type, are going to have to be
able to do more than just get important problems properly defined. They are going to
have to generate such problems first and excite others about taking them on. This we
call problem FINDING (as distinct from problem defining), and represents the first
stage of our four-stage model. This is the stage that Al Gore is in right now with his “An
Inconvenient Truth” about global warming efforts. From our perspective, that is a great
example of a fuzzy situation.
Generation, that is problem finding, means continuously and deliberately discovering new
and useful problems to be formulated, solved and implemented. Kabanoff and Rossiter
(1994) cited problem finding as one of the most vital and difficult frontiers for creativity
researchers – a “messy” concept that is hard to define and use. Problem finding is a
crucial element of creativity, especially real-world creativity in applied settings. It means
discovering new problems for subsequent definition. This is similar to what Simon (1977)
called “opportunistic surveillance.” Guilford (1950) stressed the importance of “sensitivity
to problems” and related it to our everyday notion of curiosity. Others have emphasized
that discovering new important problems to solve and implementing new solutions is as
important as or even more important than creating the new solutions. (Mackworth, 1965;
Livingston, 1971; Getzels, 1975; Leavitt, 1975; Simon, 1960; Levitt, 1963; Ackoff, 1979).
Basadur (1979) and Basadur, Graen and Green (1982) provided empirical evidence that
attitudes, behaviors and skills associated with problem finding were distinctly different from
those associated with problem solving.
People tend to wait for others to find problems for them to solve rather than take the
initiative to seek out or anticipate problems, changes, trends and opportunities for
improvement or innovation. Rarely does anyone in business, industry and government
precisely define your assignment. This provokes some frustration and anxiety in many
people trying to adjust to continual, accelerating change. How to live with the anxiety of
not knowing what you are supposed to do in uncharted territory? In organizations, people
often will not raise, and indeed do their best to avoid, important problems that cut across
organizational functions and department lines: “That’s not our problem.”
They tend to overlook “unsolvable” problems and concentrate instead on simpler
concerns. Often people assume prematurely that “it can’t be done” when they know
too much about their work and fail to inquire further or challenge convention.
Numerous historical examples exist in many industries.
Successful leaders in the 21st
century are also going to have to get people involved
in executing the fourth and final stage of our model, which is called Implementation.
This may be the most difficult part of wicked problem solving. Even when difficult
complex problems have been raised, defined, and solved, often nothing happens.
The solutions do not get implemented. One reason is that often those most interested
in their formulation are the least interested in making the actual changes happen.
They assume someone else can handle this and that the implementation is self
evident and relatively simple.
Another reason is that people are often afraid to implement their own creative solutions.
They fear failure and the unknown (which is where their new solution will take them).
They fear their solution is imperfect and will open them to criticism. Distrusting their

Page 28 of 29
superiors, associates and subordinates, and looking for the best route to compete,
succeed and move ahead, they conform to accepted patterns. The need to belong
and to learn the rules for achieving career success win out over the opportunity to make
bold, risky decisions and the prospect of making mistakes. Who wishes to make a fool of
themselves or of others?
People consider it impolite to be too inquisitive.
They hesitate to confess ignorance or to ask “why” about things that everyone else
seems to know or accept. This leads to the “group think” phenomenon in team problem
solving (Janis, 1971). In our present high-speed communications age, thought and
change leaders must contend with a group of people loosely defined as “media” who
are only too eager to jump upon any new idea or mistake to rip it apart and find blame,
or at least oversimplify it and sensationalize a negative spin on a portion of the solution.
Kabanoff and Rossiter (1994) defined applied creativity as a process “occurring in
a real-world, industrial, organizational or social context; pertaining to the finding or
solving of complex problems; and having an actual behavioral creative product
(or plan) implemented as the final result.” Working beyond “argumentation,” we
believe that successful leaders will have to learn to synchronize individuals’ very
different preferences for various stages of this four-stage creative process (called
their process style) into everyday organizational work and life for tangible results and
for motivation, job satisfaction and group interaction (Basadur, 1992; 1994; 1995; 2004).
…Stay tuned for Part 2 of Rethinking Wicked Problems!
(C1) Rittel, Horst (1972) “On the Planning Crisis: Systems Analysis of the ‘First and
Second Generations’,” Bedriftsøkonomen, Nr. 8. Also, Reprint No. 107, Institute of
Urban and Regional Development, University of California, Berkeley. (available at
http://www.csun.edu/~vasishth/Rittel-Planning_Crisis.pdf)
(C2) Winograd, Terry and Fernando Flores (1986) Understanding Computers and
Cognition: A New Foundation for Design, Ablex.
(B1) Charles H. Kepner & Benjamin B. Tregoe, “The Rational Manager: A Systematic
Approach to Problem Solving and Decision Making,” McGraw-Hill, 1965 (Also, “The New
Rational Manager,” Princeton Research Press, 1981)
(B2) A New Methodology for Formulating Ill-Structured Problems.” Basadur MS,
Ellspermann SJ, and Evans GW (1994). Omega, Int. J. Mgmt. Sci., Vol. 22, No. 6. pp.
627-645.
(B3) Ackoff RL (1979). The future of operational research is past. J. Opl Res. Soc. 30,
93-104.

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(B4) Basadur MS (1994). Managing the creative process in organizations. In Problem
Finding, Problem Solving, and Creativity. (Edited by Runco MJ). Ablex, Norwood, NJ. In
press.
(B5) Basadur MS and Finkbeiner CT (1985). Measuring preference for ideation in
creative problem solving training. J. Appl. Behav. Sci. 21, 37-49.
(B6) Elbing A (1978). Behavioral Decisions in Organizations. Scott Foresman, Glenview,
ILL.
(B7) Evans JR (1991) Creative Thinking in the Decision and Management Sciences.
South-Western Publishing Co., Cincinnati, OH.
(B8) Land E (1972). From Sean Callahan’s article Dr Land’s magic camera. Life Mag.
27, October, 42.
(B9) Simon HA (1960). The New Science of Management Decision. Prentice-Hall,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
(B10) “Reducing Complexity Using Challenge Mapping.” Basadur MS (2003). The
Korean Journal of Thinking & Problem Solving. 13(2), 5-27.
(B11) Basadur MS, Pringle P, Speranzini G & Bacot M. (2000). Collaborative problem
solving through creativity in problem definition: Expanding the pie. Creativity and
Innovation Management, 9(1) (March),
NextD Journal
RERETHINKING DESIGN
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