I promised, in LO2351, to summarize the responses to by plea
for cites to the issue of "wicked problems"...and, here 'tis:
K.C. Burgess Yakemovic (kcby @ gpsi.com):
> I just remembered a book with the title Wicked
> Problems, Righteous Solutions (Peter DeGrace, Leslie
> Hulet Stahl)... let's see...
> He says.... ( page 82)
> "... we are now encountering problems of a different nature
> where the computer is no longer at the center of things --
> the human is -- and the machine is now acting to provide
> or organize information the humans need to produce results.
> These are called "wicked problems", described by
> Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber[1973]"
> The full reference is given as:
> Rittel, H., and M. Webber, 1973 "Dilemmas in
> a General Theory of Planning" pp 155-169, _Policy
> Sciences_, Vol. 4, Elsevier Scientific Publishing
> Company, Inc. Amsterdam
N.B.: This paper seems to be the "classical reference,"
and was also cited by John Warfield and Peter Marks in
their e-mail messages to me and to the list.
Moody Ahmad (moody@iexist.att.com):
> There is a good description of wicked problems in
> "Challenging Strategic Planning Assumptions," by Mason and
> Mitroff. They also refer in there to a paper by Horst Rittel,
> On the Planning Crisis: Systems Analysis of the 'First and
> Second Generations', Bedriftsokonomen, NR8, 390-396, 1972.
Kelly Nakamura (knakamura @ oise.on.ca):
> SIMON, H.A. (1969). "Sciences of the Artificial."
> Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Michael Ayers (mbayers1 @ mmm.com):
> Team Tools for Wicked Problems
> Pacanowsky, M.
> Organizational Dynamics
> The edition of early '95 (Winter?)
Lew Mills (mills@itsa.ucsf.edu):
> By the way, another interesting article in the same vein is
> Lindblom (1952), "The Science of 'Muddling Through'", Public Admin.
> Review. This is about how policy makers "muddle through" rather than
> rationally solve (wicked) policy decisions.
Stella Humphries (hum068 @ hrb.csiro.au) enlisted the help
of a colleague and came up with a couple more cites:
>Pacanowsky, Michael
>Team Tools for Wicked Problems.
> Some problems simply defy conventional problem-solving
> techniques. This article offers an inside look at how W.L.
> Core & Associates trains teams to tame these "wicked"
> issues.
>In: Organizational dynamics. Wint 1995 v 23 n 3 pp 36-51
>
>
>Buchanan, Richard
>Wicked Problems in Design Thinking.
>In: Design issues. Sprg 1992 v 8 n 2 pp 5+
Thanks to all of you who've helped in my little project. (And
to those who requested a copy of the forthcoming paper: Our
first experiment is on August 23rd; I expect to update the
current internal draft around September 1 and mail you a copy
then.)
--Carol Anne
Carol Anne Ogdin <Carol_Anne_Ogdin@deepwoods.com>