LIST OF WORKSHOPS

The general objective of the workshop is to review, synthesizes, and evaluate models and methods that have been used to conceptualize and investigate wicked problems, with a view towards their solution. The term wicked problems has been chosen because the bulk of extant literature employs this term rather than nearly coterminous concepts of ill-defined (Reitman), ill-structured (Simon), and squishy(Strauch) problems. Pursuing this objective at the present time is important because of the growing and soon-to-be unmanageably huge literature on these problems. For example, C. West Churchman’s two-page article on wicked problems, where the term was first used, was published in 1967. Since that time some 938 books and articles have been published with either “wicked problem” or “wicked problems” in the title. These terms have been used in published literature

some 216,000 times. The well-known articles by Horst Rittel in Policy Sciences and the follow-up article by Rittel and Webber in the same year have been cited 11,628 times. For comparison, consider citations to Simon’s 1955 article (“A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice”), which is the critique of economic rationality for which he got the Nobel. This article was cited 10,114 times between 1967 (12 years after it was published) and 2017. This comparison attests to the successful diffusion of the “wicked problem” concept. For another comparison, Lindblom’s “The Science of Muddling Through”(1959) was cited about the same number of times (12,137) between 1959 and 2017 period.

The wicked problem concept was born out of a concern with the unmanageable complexity of contemporary society, particularly urban areas such as Los Angeles in which unanticipated widespread riots occurred in 1965. However, the wider context in which the concept originated was one of the inadequacy of responses to complexity by planners, policy analysts, and operations researchers. This is among the reasons why Churchman advocated that professionals acknowledge to their clients in government and business that they could not assume professional responsibility for the solution of wicked problems and, for this reason, they should not be held morally responsible. Indeed, if we return to the original Churchman, Rittel, and Weber formulation, it is clear that wicked problems cannot be solved. 

At the same time that the wicked problems arose, Herbert Simon(1973) was writing about what he called "ill-structured" problems. In contrast to the views of Rittel and Weber, who saw wicked problems as unmanageable and ubiquitous, Simon saw problems ranging from artificial intelligence and chess playing to ship building by the British Admiralty as sets of well-structured problems that became ill-structured only when it became necessary to combine them into larger configurations. Simon also argued that ill-structured problems, when they exist, become well structured in the course of their solution. For Simon, in contrast to researchers writing in the next decade (e.g., Dunn 1981; Mitroff and Mason 1981), who identified special methods appropriate only for structuring and solving  ill-structured problems (e.g., dialectical planning and policy analysis), Simon asserted that no special methods were required to solve ill-structured problems. For example, the use of network analysis for solving problems of complex-adaptive systems would not have been seen as a special method.

These and other issues give rise to a variety of hypotheses (or research problems) concerning alternative ways to conceptualize, structure, and solve wicked problems:

• Given that complexity figures so prominently in the conceptualization of wicked problems, can the work of anthropologists and sociologists (Carneiro, Murdock and Provost, Naroll), who find that complex societies have upwards of 3,000 different cultural traits, most of which are correlated with political and social variables, be employed to re-conceptualize wicked problems of which complexity is a primary property?
• Are there differences among researchers who conduct research at micro (Saaty) and macro (Churchman) levels of analysis, prompted by the unique disciplinary orientations of operations research and systems theory?
• Can meaningful distinctions be made of the content and construct validity of conceptualizations at the micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis?
• Do methods designed for special professons such as intelligence analysis (e.g., Jones and Silberzahn, Constructing Cassandra: Reframing Intelligence Failure at the CIA, 1947-2001 (2013) represent promising additions to methods for solving wicked problems?
• Leaders of another special profession (or discipline), agricultural and applied economics, have recently warned that applied economics cannot survive unless it addresses wicked problems. Is the domain of economic systems comparably complex to, say political systems, or policymaking processes?
• Some have proposed that the complexity of societies and policy systems can be estimated by using power laws, specifically the logarithm of the largest city in a society, to estimate complexity. Do power laws hold promise for conceptualizing the structure of wicked problems?
• There are a number of decision aids designed to improve the performance of policymakers in solving wicked, or ill-structured, problems. These range from simple methods of brainstorming to more complex methods such as cross-impact analysis, many of which were developed at the RAND Corporation in the 1960s. Are these and other methods likely to yield higher levels f performance in structuring and solving wicked problems?
• One of the geniuses of early statisticians was to recognize that errors are not a nuisance, but may be organized into distributions for purposes of determining the amount of error in estimates. In this context, to what degree have wicked problems have been solved. The preliminary early work of Raiffa (1974) and Mitroff (1979) still provides basis for future developments in Type III and Type IV errors (Dunn 2018) in problem structuring. 
• Much of the literature on wicked problems since 1967 seems to represent a never-ending discourse with reality, with few if any tangible results of research that shows that wicked problems have been at least clearly conceptualized, if not partially solved. This gives rise to the question: What would a wicked problem be if it were completely solved? Although there some example, these are local and sometimes trivial (e.g., Ackoff's famous "elevator problem)."What would global wicked problems such as global warming or terrorism look like if they were solved?
• Finally, if many of the problems above were alleviated, but not completely solved, can methods such as morphological analysis or cross-impact analysis be evaluated with tools of research synthesis and meta-analysis, this creating a new "evidence-based problem structuring?" If not, efforts in this area might be better invested in other areas.

A call for papers on these are related problems will be announced. It is expected that papers will be developed by scholars including Ian Mitroff U.C Berkeley), Richard Mason (Arizona State U.), Thomas Saaty (University of Pittsburgh), Peter May(University of Washington), Matthijs Hisschemoeller(Free University of Amsterdam), Rob Hoppe (University of Twente), Phil Murphy (Monterey Institute and Middlebury College), Eefje Cuppen (Delft University), Nancy Roberts (Naval Postgraduate School), Phillippe Silberzahn (Ecole Polytechnique France), William Ascher (Claremont-McKenna College), B. Guy Peters (University of Pittsburgh), Giandomenico Malone (European University Institute), Des Gaspers (Hague Institute for Social Studies), Goktug Morcol (Pennsylvania State University, Stephen Coulthart (UTEP), and William Dunn (University of Pittsburgh).

The general objective of the workshop is to review, synthesizes, and evaluate models and methods that have been used to conceptualize and investigate wicked problems, with a view towards their solution. Pursuing this objective at the present time is important because of the growing and soon-to-be unmanageably huge literature on these problems. For example, C. West Churchman’s two-page article on wicked problems, where the term was first used, was published in 1967. Since that time some 938 books and articles have been published on wicked problems The term has been used in published literature some 216,000 times. The well-known articles by Horst Rittel in Policy Sciences have been cited almost 12,000 times. The wider context in which the concept originated was one of the inadequacy of responses to complexity by planners, policy analysts, and operations researchers. This is among the reasons why Churchman advocated that professionals acknowledge to their clients in government and business that they could not assume professional responsibility for the solution of wicked problems and, for this reason, they should not be held morally responsible. In contrast to these views, Herbert Simon saw well-structured problems that become ill-structured only in larger configurations; and ill-structured problems again become well structured in the course of their solution. While writers in the next decade identified special methods appropriate only for solving ill-structured problems (e.g., dialectical planning and policy analysis), Simon asserted that no special methods were required.These and other issues give rise to a variety of hypotheses (or research problems) concerning alternative ways to conceptualize, structure, and solve wicked problems. Contributors to the workshop will address these and related issues in the course of the three-day workshop.

WILLIAM DUNN is Professor of Public Policy and author of policy papers, articles, and books, including Public Policy Analysis (1981) which is the first book to devote a full chapter to methods of problem structuring. The most recent 6th edition (2018) is translated into 6 languages and published by Routledge. He has also written numerous articles on problem structuring in policy analysis. An elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, he is a recipient of Douglas McGregor, Aaron Wildavsky, and Donald T. Campbell awards for methodological innovation. Most recently he received the University of Pittsburgh's Provost’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring. He is a former Peace Corps Volunteer (Senegal I).

STEPHEN COULTHART is Assistant Professor at the University of Texas El Paso and an emerging scholar of intelligence, terrorism, and national security policymaking. He completed a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and he holds two master’s degrees in international relations and public administration. At the University of Pittsburgh, Coulthart received the Harold D. Lasswell award from the Horowitz Foundation for his dissertation on analytic reform in the US intelligence community. His research has been published in Intelligence and National Security, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, and the Journal of Strategic Security. Coulthart has also been a contributor to the commentary websites War on the Rocks, Defense One, and the Council on Foreign Relations’ Net Politics. Beyond his scholarly activities, he has conducted policy research and training with numerous governmental and non-governmental entities and is Truman Security Fellow with the Truman National Security Project.