AgainstWickedProblems

Context : WickedProblems

I increasingly dislike the term wicked problem. I think it obscures more than it reveals.

There are three reasons a problem is hard :

• 1) It's a "political problem". By which I mean that it's hard because there is genuine disagreement between people, not about how to solve the problem, but what the desired solution is. Here the problem is that different agents work against each other.

• 2) It's a "complexity problem". By which I mean it's about predicting / controlling the behaviour of a complex system which is dependent on initial conditions and history, where inputs have non-linear relations to outputs etc. Here the problem is that we don't have enough knowledge of mappings of our inputs to the expected outcomes.

• 3) It's computationally intractable. Ie. we have a valid algorithm for solving the problem but don't have the time or resources to do it.

It would be far better to figure out which (or which combination) of the above we're dealing with than appeal to some vague, ineffable difficultness (which is increasingly what "wicked problem" deteriorates into.)