Historical Evolution of Wicked Problems – Transition Design Seminar CMU

mindsets and postures often go unnoticed and unacknowledged but they profoundly influence what is identified as a problem and how it is framed and solved within a given context. Transition Design argues that it is important to understand the dominant worldview which underpins many wicked problems in order to envision new socio-economic- political-e... See more

Transition Design argues that stakeholder relations are the “connective tissue” within wicked problems, and and these nuanced “systemic relations” must be ‘mapped’ and analyzed to serve as the basis for problem resolution

Transition design focuses on everyday life in place as the primary context for intervening in wicked problems. Everyday life can be understood as an emergent property of people going about the activity of satisfying their needs. Understanding how people define their needs, and go about satisfying them (or failing to do so) is a key strategy for dev... See more

The roots of many wicked problems are connected to relations of conflict and power imbalances among stakeholder groups. These complex stakeholder relations are also barriers to societal/organizational transitions

A wicked problem is one where there are a plethora of ways to work towards the vision with multiple parties, people, systems, processes, and interactions that may impact or be impacted by the solution.

Uneven power relations among stakeholder groups: The distribution of power (socio-economic-political) among stakeholders affected by a wicked problem is almost always unequal and systemic in nature

At what level of scale will the intervention be situated? • How does this project connect and amplify with the others? • How does the intervention connect to both the long-term vision and the near-term milestone(s) ? • Does it represent changes in material (artifacts/processes/ technology/policy etc) or non-material factors (attitudes/beliefs/ valu... See more

Identifies and considers all stakeholder groups: Understanding and addressing the social roots of a wicked problem demands that all stakeholder groups are identified and their concerns integrated into the problem frame.