Panel Reflection
Steven Cork spoke about complex problems, then Geoff Mortimer gave some ideas about running tutorials.
Steven linked thinking about complexity with decision making. There doesn’t seem to be much point looking at complexity if it doesn’t lead to a decision, and I think we will see more of this theme in the course . I also think it needs to lead to some sort of concrete action. This concrete action seems to be missing from the policy cycle diagram.
A distinction was drawn between complicated (many components but understandable) and complex (undefined boundaries, past states affecting present, feedback loops and uncertain outcomes).
Panel Question
I would have liked to asked why the spaghetti diagram (showing the complexity of the situation in Afghanistan) was drawn the way it was. I thought the diagram was unnecessarily complicated and could have been simplified by redrawing it with straight lines and less crossing paths. This is important because the way diagrams are drawn influences the viewers perception of how complicated they are.
Tutorial Reflection
All of the ten points in the Head and Alford article (quoting Rittel and Weber) that define a wicked problem could also apply to engineering. Their view of engineering seems to be a bit simplistic.
We looked at the wicked problem matrix. I tend to agree with the group consensus that defining the degree of wickedness of a problem doesn’t really help to solve it. However we could be missing something important here, in which case we will probably revisit it later in the course.
Connections within this course
It is only early in the semester, but I suspect the complicated versus complex theme will recur during the course.
Connections to other courses
One of the viewpoints on famine (page 5 of Steven Cork’s slides) referred to a “lack of family planning” and a world-view that “less advanced nations need help (to be more like us)”. The statistics in Hans Rosling’s TED talk (which we watched in Graphical Data Analysis) seems to debunk this view.
External Connections
I read this article about wicked problems when it was published, this was part of the reason I became interested in doing this course.
During the panel it was noted that the policy cycle often fails to understand the underlying causes of problems. This was also raised in the Federal Rivers seminar.
Tools to Address Complexity
- acknowledge uncertainty
- understand root causes