Wicked Problems

Wicked Problems occupy a distinct and often misunderstood place in the landscape of complex
human affairs. They arise where many actors pursue overlapping but conflicting aims, where
information is incomplete or contested, and where every intervention alters the conditions
it seeks to improve.

Unlike technical problems, Wicked Problems cannot be stabilised long enough to permit
definitive analysis or solution. Their boundaries shift, their meanings evolve, and their
consequences unfold through interaction across people, institutions and environments.
They are not puzzles waiting to be solved, but systems in motion.

What makes a problem “wicked”

• Multiple, conflicting interpretations of what the problem is
• Distributed causality rather than linear cause–effect chains
• Outcomes that emerge through interaction, not instruction
• Interventions that irreversibly change the situation
• No single authority able to impose closure or consensus

Wicked Problems are therefore not merely complex in a technical sense. They are inherently
social, political and value-laden. What counts as evidence, progress or success depends on
perspective, position and institutional context.

Working with, rather than solving

The implication is a shift in posture. Progress does not come from optimisation or control,
but from approaches that are collaborative, iterative and reflexive. Working with Wicked
Problems means stabilising them only provisionally, learning through action, and sustaining
inquiry in the absence of final resolution.

This artefact develops an ontological account of Wicked Problems and explores why
traditional planning, modelling and authoritative decision-making so often struggle.
It proposes provisional stabilisation and exploratory inquiry as ways of engaging
productively with problems that cannot be made tame.

CC BY–SA 4.0 · December 2025