I was once taken to task by a reviewer for the use of the phrase "wicked problem" to denote the sorts of non-theoretical issues designers confront in formgiving. "Design thinking" is a redundant phrase--designing without being informed by "design thinking" is meaningless. "Design thinking" is either Design History Lite or Design for MBAs in the book of this design historian--and one top industrial designer designer stated, "this kind of snake oil comes around about every decade." Remember the pursuit of Excellence?

I like your challenge, Vladimir. To answer your question, I think we need to agree on definitions for “wicked problems” and “design thinking” first. In the end, these are arbitrary pair of words. What is important is how we define them; what they mean.

I recently did some digging on the origin of the pair “wicked problems”. I have added my sources below. Reference to design problems as wicked problems was first formulated by Rittel in the 1960s. The first published report defined wicked problems as a “class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with conflicting values, and where the rami­fications in the whole system are thoroughly con­fusing”. In Rittel’s view, most design problems are indeterminate, as there are no definitive condi­tions or limits to them, they are ill-defined problems and therefore, wicked problems. Buchanan provided a practical example. A good design brief will include requirements and constraints to be considered in resolving the design problem. However, it will not specify in great detail the particular features of the solution, as this would take the “wickedness” out. Removing the wicked­ness could seem like a good idea, but in practicality, removing the “wickedness” would narrow the possi­bility of innovative outcomes.

As for “design thinking”, there are dozens of definitions in the literature, most designers practicing design will be able to relate to the most basic one. For example, it can be defined as a human-cen­tered discovery process, followed by iterative cycles of prototyping, testing, and refinement. I personally think that “design thinking” is a combination of “analytic thinking” and “creative thinking”. This is implied in Brown's definition. This concept is extremely useful to describe a design process to someone who is not familiar with these types of processes (i.e., novice design students, non-design majors, MBA students).

So, to your question, based on these working definitions, there is a great relationship between wicked problems and design thinking, but they exist independently. We have made lots of intellectual progress from the late 60s. I do not see the general design research community going in circles, quite the opposite.

• H. W. J. Rittel and M. M. Webber, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” Policy Sci., vol. 4, pp. 155–169, 1973.
• W. C. Churchman, “Wicked Problems,” Manage. Sci., vol. 4, no. 14, p. B-141-42, 1967.
• R. Buchanan, “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking,” Des. Issues, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 5–21, 1992.
• T. Brown, “Design Thinking,” Harvard Business Review, vol. June, pp. 84–92, 2008.

Above I read: "design thinking” is a combination of “analytic thinking” and “creative thinking”. How 'system thinking', 'commonsense thinking' and 'scientific thinking' appear in 'design thinking'? Or, is it independent of these?

Russell Alan Flinchum ... or passions of 'reflexive practitioner', just before 'design thinking'.

Javier de la Fuente You are right, Javier: 'design thinking' guides design process in everyday life, small businesses, and nondesign majors. In engineering design, on the contrary, design process guides all kinds of thinking, mentioned here or not. It is essential to have a design tool capable to synthesize such a process.

As for 'wicked problems', nowadays it is unproductive notion, in my view; eapecially being coupled with 'design problem', when the latter is associated with a design event in whole.

There are only soluble and insoluble problems. Design problem is insoluble one. But it has an answer. What soluble problem fetches this answer instead of design one? Without formal presentations for 'problem', problem solving', 'problem answering', 'design problem' (exact language in general), we are getting stuck in a treacle of intuitive reasoning.

'Quite the opposite'?

Thank you for the guiding in literature.

Excellent answers

A reflection on the above 'we have made lots of progress from the late 60s', with only two points from design fundamentals: 1) design problem retains the status of 'wicked'; rom time to time, it is sluggishly debated, but without a clear answer how to deal with; 2) Design Community has not yet outgrown the 'design process model'.

Pile-up of high-tech tools (AI, VR, AR, robotics, ...) around such a low-tech object as the process model (microscopes around a hummer) may not lead to radical advances in design practice. Despite the overt evidence that this process model has been a rudiment of the pre-digital design methodology, DC steadily proceeds with reputable studies of the disreputable subject, imparting this fun to students and blocking this branch of research at an impasse. It is unclear when th inertia of wasting time and a nice bit of money on design's yesterday will run out.

excellent debate... even the last paper I looked at was a literature review... I tried to come up with a new design process, but I failed...I would like to know more about what can DT bring for new technologies...

As highlighted above by Javier de la Fuente, “design thinking” is a combination of “analytic thinking” and “creative thinking”. (Brown et al). Implicitly or explicitly, "argumentative" approaches are essential to some design disciplines. Rittel and Webber (1973) characterized design and planning problems as 'wicked' problems, fundamentally un-amenable to the techniques of science and engineering, which dealt with 'tame' problems. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad. Wicked problems have no definitive formulation, no trial-and-error. (Horst Rittel & Melvin Webber, 1973). Herbert Simon (1969) had introduced the notion of 'satisficing‘ and an 'argumentative', participatory process in which Designers are partners with clients, customers, users, the community. It is generally believe to be more relevant to Architecture & Planning. And I am bound to agree. Satisficing = Satisfy + Suffice.

And, in my humble opinion, Design thinking and 'wicked' problems - may not always mutually agree nor are they mutually exclusive in all cases. So, Satisficing may be a good idea.

We will be infinitely grateful to esteemed Dr Tungnung when he decides to share the secret how to tell computer what the 'wicked problem' is. In the meantime, we can only stick to digital and parity technologies that deal only with soluble, insoluble, rhetorical and pseudo-problems. These technologies often cannot be crossbred with human-centered methodologies (of design, in particular): such notions as 'wicked', 'ill-structured', 'ill-defined' problems lose every sense there.

Azam Nemati Chermahini. I'm not sure, but if your remark concerns also the DT of mine, I would willingly clarify its key points and answer the questions.

the last paper I've read: Article Doing Design Thinking: Conceptual Review, Synthesis and Rese...

starts with a Literature Review and reflect the basic approaches derived from “wicked” problems.I do not aim to re-define Wicked problem and its relation to DT. What I like in this discussion is your critical thinking to DT. I want to ask you kindly give some explanation on:

1)"Design Community has not yet outgrown the 'design process model. "

2) " In engineering design, on the contrary, design process guides all kinds of thinking"

Many thanks for your questions, Dear Azam.

1) Design process (DPR) model employment systematizes designer's efforts on DPR synthesis (side result of such synthesis becomes a product design). But a model mirrors partial knowledge about an object (DPR in the case), and model-based synthesizing of the latter does not look as a perfect variant. It appears that a product is manufactured according to its design, while product design itself is obtained through variant interpretation of DPR variant model

Classical DPR models are based on trivial heuristics. DPR models and their interpretations are human-only. With his pivot of pre-ddigital design technology (methodology), community does not want to part even today.

2) Systematic DPR synthesis (as opposed to process model interpretation) is performed by computer. The designer retains the decision-making function; its execution requires from him 'all kinds of thinking'.