Wicked Problems and Genuine Uncertainty

Abstract

In the early 1970s, Horst Rittel, a design theorist and urban planner at the University of Berkley in California, developed the concept of wicked problems. These are complex societal, organisational and policy planning problems that are difficult to define and structure properly because they are continually evolving and mutating in a dynamic social context. This chapter gives a short historical and theoretical background to the notion of wicked problems, relates it to the concept of genuine uncertainty and shows how and why GMA is attuned to dealing with these types of problems.