Wicked Problems Worth Solving

Wicked Problems Worth Solving
Author: Jon Kolko
Publisher:
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2012
Genre: Design
ISBN: 9780615593159

It feels like our world is spinning out of control. We see poverty, disease, and destruction all around us, and as we search for ways to make sense of the chaos, we're turning to new disciplines for answers and solutions. New, creative innovations are needed, and these new approaches demand different methods and different theories. This book is presented as a handbook for teaching and learning how to design for impact. In it, you'll learn how to apply the process of design to large, wicked problems, and how to gain control over complexity by acting as a social entrepreneur. You'll learn an argument for why design is a powerful agent of change, and you'll read practical methods for engaging with large-scale social problems. You can read this entire book online for free at http://www.wickedproblems.com/

Wicked Problems of Water Quality Governance

Wicked Problems of Water Quality Governance
Author: James E. Nickum
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2022-12-26
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1000815307

This book explores the many dimensions of water quality problems in different parts of the globe, with focus on problems of governance, from legal frameworks to social discourses and compensation measures. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.3 on Water and Sanitation emphasizes the centrality of improving water quality to attain sustainable development. Yet the obstacles to achieving this goal are significant. This book explores the variety of difficult, possibly intractable “wicked” problems of water quality governance around the world. Cases include the challenge of managing water from source to sea, exploring why attempts to do so have come up short in limiting harm to the Great Barrier Reef; differing social discourses on market based instruments in Canada; efforts to bring to closure the human legacies of Minamata methyl mercury poisoning half a century ago in Japan; current problems of mercury use in Andean mining; misalignment of established Eastern European water laws with those of the EU; water quality markets in China; the impacts of service coverage and quality on low income households in countries from New Zealand to Bangladesh and Malawi; the importance of perceptions, ranging from the use of treated wastewater by farmers in the MENA region to consumers in Fukushima and to users of the artificial river in Beijing’s Olympic Park; and finally the confluence of wicked problems in refugee camps facing COVID. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Water International.

Leadership for Sustainability

Leadership for Sustainability
Author: R. Bruce Hull
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2020-11-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1642831670

Solving today’s environmental and sustainability challenges requires more than expertise and technology. Effective solutions will require that we engage with other people, wrestle with difficult questions, and learn how to adapt and make confident decisions despite uncertainty. We need new approaches to leadership that empower professionals at all levels to tackle wicked problems and work towards sustainability. Leadership for Sustainability gives readers perspective and skills for promoting creative and collaborative solutions. Blending systems thinking approaches with leadership techniques, it offers dozens of strategies and specific practices that build on the foundation of three main skills: connecting, collaborating, and adapting. Inspiring case studies show how the book’s strategies and principles can be applied to diverse situations: Coordinating the activities of widely dispersed individuals and groups who may not even know they are connected, illustrated by the work of urban planners, local businesses, citizens, and other stakeholders advancing ambitious climate action goals via a Community Energy Plan in Arlington County, Virginia Collaborating with diverse stakeholders to span boundaries despite their differences of opinion, expertise, and culture, as illustrated by the bold actions of a social entrepreneur who transformed the global food service industry with the “plant-forward” movement Adapting to continuous change and confounding uncertainty, as a small nonprofit organization mobilizes partners to tackle poverty, water scarcity, sanitation, and climate change in rural India Readers will come away with a holistic understanding of how to lead from where they are by applying leadership principles and practices to a wide range of wicked situations. While the challenges we face are daunting, the authors argue that these situations present opportunities for creating a more just, healthy, and prosperous world.

Wicked Environmental Problems

Wicked Environmental Problems
Author: Peter J. Balint
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2012-06-22
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1610910478

"Wicked" problems are large-scale, long-term policy dilemmas in which multiple and compounding risks and uncertainties combine with sharply divergent public values to generate contentious political stalemates; wicked problems in the environmental arena typically emerge from entrenched conflicts over natural resource management and over the prioritization of economic and conservation goals more generally. This new book examines past experience and future directions in the management of wicked environmental problems and describes new strategies for mitigating the conflicts inherent in these seemingly intractable situations. The book: reviews the history of the concept of wicked problems examines the principles and processes that managers have applied explores the practical limitations of various approaches Most important, the book reviews current thinking on the way forward, focusing on the implementation of "learning networks," in which public managers, technical experts, and public stakeholders collaborate in decision-making processes that are analytic, iterative, and deliberative. Case studies of forest management in the Sierra Nevada, restoration of the Florida Everglades, carbon trading in the European Union, and management of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania are used to explain concepts and demonstrate practical applications. Wicked Environmental Problems offers new approaches for managing environmental conflicts and shows how managers could apply these approaches within common, real-world statutory decision-making frameworks. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with managing environmental problems.

Just Add Water

Just Add Water
Author: Rhett B. Larson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2020-04-16
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0190948035

Scientists have long been searching for a unified field theory--one answer to all of the questions about the physical universe. In this book, Rhett Larson takes a similar approach to social policy questions. What if we could find a unified social policy theory--the answer to every question from how to prevent war to how to promote gender equality? Most of our most serious global challenges are complex, multi-faceted "wicked problems." But perhaps the first step in solving wicked problems as seemingly distinct as racism and disease epidemics is the same: reform our laws, policies, and priorities to achieve global water security. Global water security means reasonable access for all people to water of acceptable quantity and quality with acceptable costs and risks. Just as the essential element to all life is water, so water is the essential element to solving life's challenges. Virtually every major social challenge--including gender inequality, racial discrimination, terrorism, space exploration, global disease epidemics, mass migrations, and climate change--has a significant and underappreciated water component. Each chapter of this book takes up one of these wicked problems, illustrates the role water plays in that problem, and proposes reforms to address the water aspect of that problem, with the aim of achieving global water security. The goal of this this book is to convince the reader that the answer, or at least one part of the answer, to our most serious problems is the oft-repeated catchphrase: "Just add water."

The Wicked Problem of Forest Policy

The Wicked Problem of Forest Policy
Author: William Nikolakis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2020-07-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108471404

Provides a global analysis of policies to address deforestation, an important driver of climate change.

Water is for Fighting Over

Water is for Fighting Over
Author: John Fleck
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2016-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1610916794

"Illuminating." --New York Times WIRED's Required Science Reading 2016 When we think of water in the West, we think of conflict and crisis. Yet despite decades of headlines warning of mega-droughts, the death of agriculture, and the collapse of cities, the Colorado River basin has thrived in the face of water scarcity. John Fleck shows how western communities, whether farmers and city-dwellers or U.S. environmentalists and Mexican water managers, actually have a promising record of conservation and cooperation. Rather than perpetuate the myth "Whiskey's for drinkin', water's for fightin' over," Fleck urges readers to embrace a new, more optimistic narrative--a future where the Colorado continues to flow.

Tackling Wicked Problems

Tackling Wicked Problems
Author: John Harris
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2010-09-23
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1136531440

From climate change to GM foods, we are increasingly confronted with complex, interconnected social and environmental problems that span disciplines, knowledge bases and value systems. This book offers a transdisciplinary, open approach for those working towards resolving these 'wicked' problems and highlights the crucial role of this 'transdisciplinary imagination' in addressing the shift to sustainable futures. Tackling Wicked Problems provides readers with a framework and practical examples that will guide the design and conduct of their own open-ended enquiries. In this approach, academic disciplines are combined with personal, local and strategic understanding and researchers are required to recognise multiple knowledge cultures, accept the inevitability of uncertainty, and clarify their own and others' ethical positions. The authors then comment on fifteen practical examples of how researchers have engaged with the opportunities and challenges of conducting transdisciplinary inquiries. The book gives those who are grappling with complex problems innovative methods of inquiry that will allow them to work collaboratively towards long-term solutions.

Climate Change: A Wicked Problem

Climate Change: A Wicked Problem
Author: Frank P. Incropera
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2016
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107109078

A pragmatic, no-holds-barred assessment of climate change, for anyone wishing to be fully informed on the topic.

The Wicked Company

The Wicked Company
Author: Marcus Kirsch
Publisher: Wicked Company
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-11
Genre:
ISBN:

WE LIVE IN AN ERA OF WICKED PROBLEMS. Can your company keep up? Technology and the evolution of the experience economy have created a reality that most companies can't just buy or work their way into. These are wicked problems: issues that continue to evolve and morph beyond your solutions even as you form them. The days of tame problems-mass production, building bridges, solving for x-are behind us, but we're still designing companies to solve those tame problems. Marcus Kirsch is here to change all that. Anyone can create a wicked company, but not without implementing ways of working and thinking that are as comprehensive and complex as the problems you're trying to solve. The Wicked Company provides a roadmap to developing a mindset about operations, corporate capability, governance, and the people your organization is made up of that will help you identify, evaluate, and solve wicked problems before they slow you down-and before the other guys have a chance to catch up.