Kevin,
I like what you did with the different kinds of dragons. It’s helpful to think about how dragons can’t exist in a vacuum. Wicked problems aren’t intrinsically problematic. They are only wicked problems from a specific perspective. And I can now better understand why the “there is no single perspective that fully understands the problem” could be part of what makes them wicked. It’s entirely possible that the different perspectives see different solutions that are mutually unacceptable and/or unviable to other perspectives.
At a higher level, I don’t think I can assume that wicked problems can be decomposed into simpler problems or systems. For the reasons mentioned above, I think it’s likely that what makes them wicked is the complexity itself. Wickedness is an emergent quality of the system that doesn’t exist in any of its parts.
What do you think?
Buster
Kevin, was originally published in Foolish Journey on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.