The increasing amount of information and interconnections between people, organizations, and effects, make most issues in Modernization and Automation complex, ill-structured, or “wicked” problems. Before a professional can design a policy, implement a solution, or measure its effectiveness, they must first grapple with the problem—what is its nature, what is its size and scope, what is the scultural context in which it occurs, who are the key stakeholders, how many are there, how are they connected?
Wicked problems, which permeate the government and business realms, are resistant to definition, intertwined with other problems at different levels of aggregation, and are often difficult to identify. Given these conditions, professionals have to contend with the fundamental unknowability and unpredictability of their environments, the importance of non-linear relationships in defining problem sets, and the role of self-organization, and co-evolution in social and technological dynamics.
Because modern societies and organizations can be conceptualized as complex adaptive systems, the insights of this approach can be leveraged for greater effect to address these problems.
This course will familiarize students with the analytical framework of complex adaptive systems and design thinking to help them acquire new tools to understand the adaptive processes and possible discontinuities that will shape many, if not most, Modernization and Automation issues. To do so, this course will focus on the Art of Design methodology to wicked problems. This approach recognizes complexity as part of the problem and as part of the solution. It also recognizes that wicked problems require new approaches that combine interdisciplinary efforts and different thinking styles.
This combination produces design thinking. Design thinking emerged as a way of grappling with the complexity of the social domain and the nature of the wicked problem set. Design thinking is an iterative problem-solving process of discovery, conceptualization, and experimentation that employs design-based techniques to gain insight and yield innovative solutions. In this course, students will learn these methodologies through hands-on exercises.
Students who complete “Complexity and Strategic Planning” should demonstrate the ability to:
- Understand the complexity of the context in which they are operating
- Understand the nature of the problem set they are trying to manage
- Understand the linkages between problem sets and between problem sets and context
- Use basic vocabulary of knowledge management as a frame of reference for studying wicked problems
- Use design thinking and creative problem-solving skills to identify and frame difficult societal problems with more discipline before considering alternative solutions
- Employ diverse techniques to observe, diverge and converge on insights, develop stories, and experiment
- Design innovative, holistic policy responses
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