Wicked Problems and Strategy Approaches to Deal with Them

Get access now to all 12manage knowledge centers and discussion forums, including Strategic Planning. Completely free.     Log in

🔥NEW Major challenges / problems, which tend to be of strategic nature, are usually considered as a "wicked" type of problems. According to Hoerst Rittel and Melvin Webber, these wicked problems lack clarity in their aims and they may not have one solution. Wicked problems are different because they can't be solved by traditional methods. Some examples of wicked problems are poverty, terrorism, unemployment, and many business strategies. There are various dimensions to wicked issues and they can not even be defined easily. Some characteristics of wicked problems are given below. Using these characteristics will make identifying such wicked problems a little easier and will help strategists and managers approach wicked strategy problems. Characteristics of a wicked problem Wicked problems involve multiple stakeholders who can also play an important role in implementing the "solution" that is chosen. These problems don't have a clear, shared definition across these stakeholders. Eve (...) Read more? Sign up for free

		John Henry Project Manager, United States
	Wicked Problem? or Poor Root Cause Analysis? Many problems have more than a single symptom, the (...)

		Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Wicked Problems I agree with John that we should use the proper to (...)

		Alex Business Consultant, Germany
	Wicked Problem Solutions Strategy is simply a theory intended to predict a (...)

		Jeff Washburn Strategy Consultant, United States
	'Wicked' Problems Have no Direct Solutions Some things are only solved indirectly. Or perhaps (...)

		Gary Wong Consultant, Canada
	We Must Look at a Wicked Problem Through the Lens of Complexity Let me describe a wicked problem using complexity (...)

		zephir engineer, France
	Problem or Problematic Situation My understanding of a wicked problem rest in the a (...)

		Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	The Wickedness of Complexity I agree with most of the points made although, @Jo (...)

		Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Characteristics of Wicked Problems The word "wicked" can have 3 major meanings: 1. e (...)

		Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Example of a Wicked Problem The above may perhaps seem difficult and rather ab (...)

		John Henry Project Manager, United States
	A Hydra is a Good Example of Root Cause The head of the hydra, is a symptom, not the cause (...)

		Gary Wong Consultant, Canada
	Living with Uncertainty @John Henry: I like your comment: "However, as the (...)

		Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	Concerning the Heart of the Hydra @Jaap de Jonge: I do like this expansion of my poi (...)