The first step is to understand what sort of problem you are facing.
Tame problems are easy to clearly express—this does not mean they are easy to solve, it’s just you know what you are trying to solve, eg. how do I achieve Euro 6 emissions from a diesel car?
A complex system problem may be more difficult to express as the problem may extend over narrow discipline boundaries, but can still be expressed in a clear concise way, eg. how do I reduce traffic pollution in London?
A messy problem is hard to express, may have looked easy to solve but on the first go were not and the solution may just not work as intended or feel right. E.g. how do I improve health in London?
Trap – most problems in engineering are not messy!
It is important not to confuse complexity with messiness. Common features of messy problems (from Wikipedia):
- No unique “correct” view of the problem
- Different views of the problem and contradictory solutions
- Most problems are connected to other problems
- Data are often uncertain or missing
- Multiple value conflicts
- Political constraints
- Economic constraints
- Often a-logical or illogical or multi-valued thinking
- Consequences difficult to imagine
- Considerable uncertainty, ambiguity
Examples include; global climate change, natural hazards, healthcare, the AIDS epidemic, pandemic influenza, international drug trafficking, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, waste and social injustice.
How do you get to grips with a messy problem?
- Don’t think about the starting point as the problem, think of it as a situation with multiple unrecognised problems.
- Think outside what looks like the obvious problem, look for factors that are constraining the situation and possibly leading to a particular point of view of what the problem is.
- Mind maps (sometimes called a Rich Picture) are helpful to describe the situation.
- From the situation, through a process of fundamental questioning, start to draw out the fundamental questions that arise from the situation. There are frameworks to help do this such as Checklands Soft System methodology.
- Once you have clarity of the question, more conventional engineering techniques can be applied to define the problem and solution.
