The Origin of “Wicked Problems”
The Origin of “Wicked Problems”
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“棘手问题”的由来
DOI：
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发表时间：
2008
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
A. Skaburskis
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
A. Skaburskis
“邪恶问题”的属性是如此广为人知，以至于这些天我们很少谈论它们。此外，谈论“邪恶问题”的本质可能会被视为对过去社会问题被认为可以通过社会科学和运筹学相关领域解决的怀旧追求。这种联系是很自然的，因为它形成了“邪恶问题”产生的环境。这本笔记回顾了“邪恶问题”概念的由来，以便将其保存在印刷品中。20世纪60年代，美国发生了两件具有代表性的事件：烧毁非裔美国人社区的城市起义和月球漫步。第一个信号表明，美国存在不容忽视的社会问题，第二个信号表明，航天局需要证明其持续资助是合理的。West Churchman当时从事运筹学和系统分析方面的开创性工作，他收到了NASA的资助，探索将空间计划的技术转移到城市问题的世界，并作为回应，于1967年在加州大学伯克利分校就这些问题发起了每周一次的研讨会。霍斯特·里特尔参加了一次会议，并提出了他的社会问题和科学或技术问题之间的区别清单，概述了他后来在现在著名的Rittel和Webber(1973)文章中调整和总结的“十个属性”(表1)。在Rittel演讲的最后，West Churchman用沉思但富有表现力的声音回应，有些人可能很清楚地记得，“嗯，那些听起来像是‘邪恶的问题’。”(1967)于是一个领域诞生了。研讨会结束后，梅尔·韦伯花了五年时间试图让霍斯特·里特尔发表这个概念，但他的努力一无所获。最后，梅尔让霍斯特坐下来，他们一起写下了这篇开创性的文章。我第一次听说“邪恶的问题”是在1969年，当时我正在旁听里特尔的本科建筑学课程。数学家霍斯特·里特尔(Horst Rittel)是设计学教授，我怀疑他觉得这个头衔有点幽默。我带着深深的使命感回来做研究生工作，因为我曾在蒙特利尔的一个非常大但停滞不前的城市重建项目中担任设计师。当邻居不想要改变的时候，你如何提升城市的档次？当然，这些都是政治问题，但我想给自己一个合理的结论，回答“我如何才能确定我想要发生什么？”里特尔的演讲引人入胜，但也是毁灭性的。后来我去了他的办公室，问如果我们不能解决“邪恶的问题”，我们可以做些什么。“哦，我们可以解决‘邪恶的问题’，”他像往常一样笑着回答，“我每天都能解决很多问题！”他告诉我，问题的关键是，我们不能参照问题所固有的逻辑来解决这些问题。
The attributes of “wicked problems” are so well known that we rarely talk about them these days. Moreover, speaking about the nature of “wicked problems” might be seen as a nostalgic quest for the days when social problems were thought to be resolvable through social science and the fields associated with operations research. This connection is natural as it formed the environment within which “wicked problems” were born. This note revisits the origin of the concept of “wicked problems” so that it can be saved in print. Two events typify the 1960s in the USA: the urban revolt that burned African American neighborhoods and the walk on the moon. The first signaled that America had social problems that could no longer be ignored and the second showed that the space agency needed to justify its continued funding. West Churchman, then engaged in pioneering work on operations research and system analysis, received a grant from NASA to explore the transfer of technology from the space program to the world of urban problems, and, in response, initiated a weekly seminar in 1967 at the University of California (UC), Berkeley on these issues. Horst Rittel attended one session, and presented his list of differences between social and scientific or technical problems, outlining the “ten attributes” (Table 1) that he later adjusted and summarized in the now-famous Rittel and Webber (1973) article. At the end of Rittel’s presentation, West Churchman responded with that pensive but expressive movement of voice that some may well remember, “Hmm, those sound like “wicked problems”.” (1967) And so a field was born. After the seminar, Mel Webber spent five years trying to get Horst Rittel to publish the concept but nothing came of his efforts. Finally, Mel sat Horst down and together they wrote the seminal article. I first heard about “wicked problems” in 1969 while auditing Rittel’s undergraduate architecture course. Horst Rittel, the mathematician, was Professor of the Science of Design, a title I suspect he found slightly humorous. I had returned to do graduate work with a deep sense of purpose, as a result of having worked as a designer on a very large but stalled urban renewal project in Montreal. How do you upgrade cities when neighbors don’t want change? Sure, these were political questions but I wanted a reasoned conclusion for myself to the question “How can I determine what it is that I want to happen?” Rittel’s lecture was fascinating but devastating. I went to his office afterwards to ask what can be done if we can’t solve “wicked problems”. “Oh, we can solve “wicked problems”,” he replied with his usual mirth, “I solve many every day!” The point is, he told me, that we can’t solve them by reference to the logic inherent in the problem.