Understand what wicked problems are

[louh]

Not all civic tech problems are necessarily wicked problems, but understanding what they are in the context of social policy will give you a level of wisdom and zen about the problems you try to tackle.

My restatement of a wicked problem in the CfA fellowship experience:

1. Every situation is inherently unique. Cities have their own culture, subcultures, histories, people, politics, and economic conditions. (Yes, you can always generalize about different groups, regions, states, political parties, etc but start there and then ask, "but how is this situation unique?)
2. The problem is difficult to define. See also The problem is not always the problem #27 "The problem is not always the problem." The problem may not be definable until after an attempt at a solution (or several).
3. The best solutions will never be immediately obvious.
4. There is no such thing as a "best" solution, only "better" ones.
5. The metrics for success are themselves difficult to define, because stakeholders and participants have different worldviews about what the problem is and what constitutes success.
6. Solutions are never actually finished. Fellowship projects are not truly final deliverables but the beginning of an experiment.
7. Problems and solutions are not inherently generalizable to other contexts. This makes projects actually difficult to redeploy and plug into different cities and their problems unless someone goes through the hard part of understanding each situation thoroughly.

The one big difference from civic tech and the classic definition of a wicked problem:

• Classicly defined, solutions to wicked problems are one-offs, with no ability to do-over. Technology has allowed us to continue to iterate and improve until the solution is better. There is always a do-over.

Brain dumped; maybe this is better broken up as several patterns / anti-patterns?

[louh]

Also should mention that while this seems like a fully formed thought it really isn't.