[3] He explains that "The adjective "wicked" is supposed to describe the mischievous and even evil quality of these problems, where proposed "solutions" often turn out to be worse than the symptoms."
[4] Churchman discussed the moral responsibility of operations research "to inform the manager in what respect our 'solutions' have failed to tame his wicked problems."
These include global climate change,[8] natural hazards, healthcare, the AIDS epidemic, pandemic influenza, international drug trafficking, nuclear weapons, homelessness, and social injustice.
In recent years, problems in many areas have been identified as exhibiting elements of wickedness; examples range from aspects of design decision making and knowledge management[9] to business strategy[10] to space debris.
[12] Recognising this, Rittel and Kunz developed a technique called Issue-Based Information System (IBIS), which facilitates documentation of the rationale behind a group decision in an objective manner.
[14][15] Design problems are typically wicked because they are often ill-defined (no prescribed way forward), involve stakeholders with different perspectives, and have no "right" or "optimal" solution.
Ultimately, the solution to ‘Wicked’ problems requires additional research to understand the gaps in information pertaining these issues.
A disadvantage of this approach is that achieving a shared understanding and commitment to solving a wicked problem is a time-consuming process.
[26]Examining networks designed to tackle wicked problems in health care, such as caring for older people or reducing sexually transmitted infections, Ferlie and colleagues suggest that managed networks may be the "least bad" way of "making wicked problems governable".
PSMs are usually used by a group of people in collaboration (rather than by a solitary individual) to create a consensus about, or at least to facilitate negotiations about, what needs to change.
According to Horn, the defining characteristics of a social mess are:[32] E. F. Schumacher distinguishes between divergent and convergent problems in his book A Guide for the Perplexed.
Global warming is a super wicked problem, and the need to intervene to tend to our longer term interests has also been taken up by others, including Richard Lazarus.