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PONDERING THE LIMITS OF THE INTRACTABLE: ON ” WICKED PROBLEMS “

For the purposes of promoting clear thinking, Dave Schuler recently had a very informative post “Theseus’s Clew: strategies, meta-strategies, and “wicked problems” “; if you wish to look at the dynamics of conflict based scenarios with a clear ( some might say ” glittering”) eye, then you should read Dave’s post in full.

But for the more slothful of my readers, an excerpt from Dave on the nature of ” wicked problems”:

“Even more unfortunately there are many real-world problems that have neither engineering solutions like the first class or negotiated solutions like the second. These are the difficult problems and, in some cases, these have been called “wicked problems”.

* the problem may be ill-defined

* the stakeholders in the problem may have dramatically different world views and framewor for understanding the problem

* the problem may have no stopping rules

* the problem may be unique and previous experience may not be applicable

Or, in many cases, the very act of selecting an approach to solving the problem permanently forecloses other alternatives. It is impossible to arrive at an iterative solution to the problem.

That’s the key to any iterative solution: you’re able to return to some point of departure and try another way. But when the initial choice precludes returning to the starting point, i.e. the decision has consequences, you can’t just try another way. When you’ve chosen the second branch, the only way out of the maze was through the first branch, and the first branch is no longer accessible to you, you’re stuck. There may no longer be a solution.”

Dave offered some excellent strategies for dealing with “wicked problems”, all of which I find to be both useful and generally correct. But as he asked me for some feedback, I have to say that there is more to the story here and some nuances to “wicked problems” that Dave did not include in his concisely written post.

First of all, not all “wicked problems” were created equally wicked. We must differentiate between those problems that are intractable from those that are merely hard or prohibitively expensive. The latter involves a significant degree of human value choice while the former is effectively beyond any direct solution within our present power to efface. Many cutting edge scientific questions are temporarily intractable until, say for example, computing power increases by a given order of magnitude. Some philosophical or religious questions, perhaps dealing with the nature of God or the afterlife, are intractable in a permanent sense.

“Wicked problems” dealing with conflict in a complex social system are not usually intractable, though we often use that word to describe very difficult to solve conflicts in places like the Middle East or Northern Ireland. What we really mean in such cases is that the problems are exceedingly complicated as well as deeply rooted in terms of psychological and emotional investment for those involved. We often describe the second aspect as being “self-destructive” or ” irrational” but in economic terms it is not irrational behavior if you place overriding value on minimizing your opponent’s gains ( though it may indeed be self-destructive to execute such a strategy at all costs) even if that value-set is a product of your own skewed perception of events.

How to deal with such ” wicked problems”? Here are several options to consider for non-intractable but difficult scenarios:

• Avoidance: The costs to benefits ratio of becoming deeply engaged in solving “wicked problems” are often unfavorable, even should you be successful. Unlike with the Middle East, the United States has never, for many reasons, invested much prestige or resources in remediating the legacy of 700 years of “Irish troubles” in Northern Ireland. Arguably, without any significant harm to our national interests whatsoever.
• New Eyes: If you must get involved, force yourself analyze the problem from a wide range of perspectives, the more non-traditional the better. Hone in on those perspectives that yield options with the greatest systemic effects even if those effects do not ” solve” the wicked problem per se.
• The Gordian Knot: Every social system-based “wicked problem” represents a dynamic that is difficult to solve in part due to the rule-sets under which the participants are operating or the rule -set interacting with a unique environment. You can consider swallowing hard and just cutting through the entire mess by rejecting the entire paradigm in a single bold stroke ( a ” Big Bang” system perturbation) that renders the problem irrelevant. This is of course, a risky move that invites replacing old problems with new and possibly worse ones.
• Rule set Reset: Somewhat akin to the Gordian knot, old paradigms are replaced with new ones because the advantages of so doing create a new consensus behind them. This is difficult but not impossible to pull-off. The Westphalian system of state sovereignty was a rule-set reset that reduced the geopolitical incentives for pursuing religious-dynastic warfare existing during the medieval world. The combined changes of nuclear weapons, the UN, Bretton Woods, and Cold War bipolarity was a partial rule-set reset from the diplomatic norms of the prewar era.

For “wicked problems” that are not intractable, wickedness is often in the eye of the beholder.

ADDENDUM:

More to come later tonight.

THE NETWORK SOCIETY

Younghusband of Coming Anarchy stopped by in the comments to recommend a Conversation With History interview with social theorist Manuel Castells.

An excerpt:

“What does it discover? That, in essence, it’s losing control of some of its ability to manage its own economy, to ensure its own social welfare policies, and so on?

Absolutely. It doesn’t mean that the states disappear, the nation state’s not going to disappear. Let me just first say that. But the degrees of freedom of nation states have shrunk to an extraordinary degree in the last ten years. In some areas of the world, it has become explicit. Let’s take the example of the European Union. Governments from the continent, the entire continent, decided to get together so that together they could have some level of bargaining power and some leverage to control global flows of wealth, information, and power. And they built a series of institutions which is not a federal state. It’s still based on nation states, but also on supranational institutions which share sovereignty and also decentralize sovereignty to local region governments. These European states also subcontract sovereignty to international institutions, such as NATO, in terms of the armed forces.

So what we have, for instance, in the case of Europe, is a complex system of institutional relations, which I call the network state, because, in fact, it’s a network of interactions of shared sovereignty. Under different forms, you have a similar situation in most of the world. In Latin America, some states are with others, but the main thing is that the key economic conditions are governed in connection with international institutions like the International Monetary Fund, through different trade treaties, MERCOSUR or the Andean Pact or the connection to the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA]. So in other words, states operate, still exist, but operate as actors of a much more complex and interactive network.”

THE COMING OF THE VIRTUAL NATION

Adrienne Redd, writing at Conversation Base Blog:

“It evokes science fiction to envision voluntary alliances networked across vast distances which challenge traditional nation-states, but it is already happening. Globalization, terrorism and events of the past five days, the past five weeks and the past five decades suggest that the nation-state may be undergoing the greatest shift since its emergence in Europe. Many of these pressures on the nation-state arise from what we could call virtual nations. The established nation-states must respond to these emergent entities or face the consequences.”

Read Adrienne’s post in full here.

“THE OLD WAYS ARE DEAD. AND YOU NEED PEOPLE AROUND YOU WHO CONCUR”

Speaking of powerpoint presentations…

I came by this manifesto “ How to be Creative” by Hugh MacLeod via Dave at Thoughts Illustrated. Some wise advice, delivered in a style reminiscient of a calmer Scott Adams.

ADDENDUM:

As promised, a powerpoint extravaganza by Dan of tdaxp.

THE PENTAGON’S CULT OF THE POWERPOINT

Kingdaddy at Arms and Influence had an excellent post “Death by Powerpoint” that castigated the use and abuse of powerpoint presentations in war planning ( Hat Tip to J. at Armchair Generalist). Here is the main point:

“You can’t blame the problems of the occupation of Iraq on some unnamed functionary who couldn’t use PowerPoint effectively. The problem was using PowerPoint at all. Anyone experienced with this tool could explain the obvious deficiencies, when used as a replacement for planning documents:

*PowerPoint compels the most superficial reconsideration of your own position. While PowerPoint forces you to organize your thoughts to some degree, it does not ignite a reconsideration of your own argument the way a written document does. PowerPoint provides a thumbnail sketch of what you might say; written documents make you actually say it. Not surprisingly, authors of written documents find themselves altering their opinions as they write. For example, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, in writing the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, found his position changing as he wrote his opinion. “

(Brownie points to Kingdaddy for referencing The Cross of Gold speech in a post on DoD practices in 2006)

I have to say, I’m startled at the idea that operational planning for the invasion of Iraq, as opposed to briefing civilian officials about the operational plan, was done via powerpoint slides. I can’t really see D-Day commencing with Eisenhower and Bradley arguing over to whom they should delegate the awesome responsibility of using the laser pointer.

Myself, I frequently use powerpoint when I lecture, though I hasten to point out that, while on occasion, I might be lecturing about a battle, I am not conducting one. About 6-8 slides I find is appropriate for an hour’s worth of talk, including a dramatic “cover” or “conclusion” slide. The visual is there to reinforce the concepts and expand upon them from another direction, not to echo them verbatim.

Though I am partial to Dr. Barnett’s brief and the wild, open-source, experience of tdaxp , some of the best ppt slides -in terms of being economical and clear – can be found at DNI, posted by Dr. Chet Richards.

LINKS:

“ON THOUGHT, PRESENTATION AND CONNECTION“