Tools for wicked problems
Problem structuring, expert judgement, risk and design thinking.
A half day on tools for wicked problems: groupthink and dissent, problem structuring methods, expert judgement and the Delphi Method, risk principles and strategy, and design thinking.
- Level
- Explore
- Learning time
- 5 hours
- Where
- Complexity, decisions and innovation
- Price
- £129
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Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Senior leaders, policy and strategy officers and boards in public service and the voluntary sector
Overview
Some problems are hard because people disagree about what the problem is. The second half of the Immerse When there is no right answer begins with Irving Janis on groupthink and the discipline of dissent, then four problem structuring methods, including Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology. It turns to expert judgement through Gary Klein's recognition primed decision model, Captain Sullenberger on the Hudson and the RAND Corporation's Delphi Method. Risk follows, with the principles of ISO 31000, the Post Office Horizon scandal and Kaplan and Mikes's three categories of risk. It rounds off with design thinking, from the Double Diamond to the Government Digital Service.
Aims
This half day is built to help leaders and teams treat disagreement as a resource: designing dissent into decisions, giving a messy choice enough shape for a group to act, gathering expert judgement fairly, building risk into strategy from the outset and using design thinking to move from problem to workable solution.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Apply a problem structuring method such as Soft Systems Methodology to give a contested problem enough shape for a group to act.
- Use the Delphi Method to gather expert judgement without the loudest voice winning, recognising when expert intuition can be trusted.
- Plan how risk will be built into strategy from the outset, using Kaplan and Mikes's three categories and the lessons of Post Office Horizon.
What you'll develop
Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:
- Describe groupthink and identify its four symptoms while a decision is still open.
- Identify the signs that a situation needs problem structuring before any option is chosen.
- Explain Klein's recognition primed decision model and why expert recognition under pressure is not guesswork.
- Explain how anonymity, controlled feedback and iteration each remove a specific distortion in group judgement.
- Explain the eight principles of ISO 31000 and test your own organisation against them.
- Distinguish preventable, strategy and external risk using Kaplan and Mikes's framework and match each to the right management response.
- Explain what makes design thinking human centred, empathy driven and non-linear, and compare the Double Diamond, d.school, IDEO and IBM models.
- Explain why capable, cohesive groups are especially vulnerable, using the Bay of Pigs case.
Built from 7 modules.
5 hours of learning.
- 01Groupthink and the Discipline of DissentSolving Complex Problems and Decision Making39 min
- 02Problem Structuring Methods: Making Sense of Messy ChoicesSolving Complex Problems and Decision Making40 min
- 03Naturalistic Decision Making: How Experts Decide Under PressureSolving Complex Problems and Decision Making38 min
- 04The Delphi Method and Group ForecastingSolving Complex Problems and Decision Making38 min
- 05Principles of Risk Management and Risk CultureStrategic Risk42 min
- 06Risk and StrategyStrategic Risk40 min
- 07Design Thinking: Principles, Process and PracticeCreativity and Innovation54 min