Yesterday the 2 sides of "the project" (the 2 sides being "NotReallyRelevant" and "EcstaticUnion" were brought together rather wonderfully for me by being introduced by a potential software development client to the concept of "Wicked Problems".
The following is reproduced from the Innovation Works web site.
- You don't (fully?) understand the problem until you've developed a solution
- There is no stopping rule (there's always a better solution if you have unlimited resources)
- There is no right or wrong answer
- Wicked problems are unique and novel (they may appear the same but small changes make everything different, like every project)
- Solutions to wicked problems are one-shot; the solution redefines the problem
- There are no given alternatives; solution A does not automatically define the alternative solution B.
