Wicked Problems and Improvisational Solutions
If you ask 5 management consultants to define the main problem your organization faces, you’ll end up with a list of at least 25 problems … and there’s a good reason for that. There is no such thing as a “stand alone” business process or problem – despite the methods taught in business schools and advocated in best-selling management books. If there were, no-one would need all these methods and books, would they?
Wicked problems are subjective and complicated. Each stakeholder has their own perspective … and each is only partly right! Nobody understands wicked problems in their entirety – the best we can do is delegate change in various areas to colleagues who see the problem in similar ways to us.
Wicked problems are interconnected and entangled – pulling the wrong “thread” can bring the whole organization down around your ears So wicked problems require an adaptive process of resolution, where various aspects of the problem are partitioned and remedied, while monitoring for interaction effects.
Change Requirements Are Emergent
We cannot define a boundary for organizational change or predict what will be involved in advance. IT and business process change present a wicked problem, involving learning and design processes that proceed largely by trial and error.
Wicked Problems
Organizational problems are wicked problems. They are subjective, interconnected, and negotiated – the problems you see depend on who is involved in the change process.
Knowledge Management
Effective design depends on involving people who understand the areas to be changed. Only the people who do the work can understand how it needs to be improved – and why.
Emergence
Organizational and IT change requirements emerge as we learn more about the problem. We cannot define a boundary for organizational change, or predict which groups and processes will need to change.
Systemic Thinking
Experience a new way of seeing the world by mapping and exploring connected problems and processes.
Project Management
We cannot plan the project or timescale to completion because new requirements emerge as we investigate those we understand. We need design approaches that iterate around scope & goals of change.
Human-Centered Design
Treating IT systems support as the driver of organizational change is disastrous. We need to see IT as serving human activity, not the other way around.