6 - RDM as a Wicked Challenge

Summary

Aims

The aim of this chapter is to explore the nature of research data as a management and leadership issue, in particular in the light of the distinction between ‘tame’ and ‘wicked’ challenges.

Types of problem

Management in any context involves tackling problems. However, it may be useful to distinguish different types of problem, because they demand a slightly different managerial approach and skillset.

In everyday management there are plenty of ‘tame’ problems. These are known issues that we have well-trodden ways of dealing with. For example, we need to change our policy to respond to a new government initiative or law. We review the change, look at our existing procedures, talk to different stakeholders and try and devise a new policy. Then we publicise the change and offer training. After a while we evaluate how well the change has been put into practice. The management problem is simply to manage the resources available to carry through a fairly familiar set of steps.

At the other end of the spectrum of complexity and uncertainty are what are sometimes called ‘wicked’ problems or challenges. These are far less familiar and understood; they are so entangled with multiple issues it is hard to know even where to start to address them. We may not be quite sure what sort of outcome we really want. Perhaps there is no ‘solution’ to them, only ways of coping. It follows that the approach to management and leadership in this kind of context requires us to operate differently from addressing the tame problem.

Exploring further

We find this idea of different types of problem an immensely interesting one. Reflect on an area of professional or personal life and see if you can identify a tame and a more wicked type of issue. Recognising the difference, do you approach the issues differently?

The wicked challenge concept

The concept of a wicked problem was originally defined in urban planning in the 1970s by Rittel and Webber (1973). An analogous concept is the ‘social mess’, a term coined by Horn and Weber (2007). Thinking about applying the concept to RDM, Cox, Pinfield and Smith (2016) suggested that we could synthesise such work to produce a list of features of a wicked challenge.