TAME AND WICKED PROBLEMS (A.K.A. DILEMMAS)
Tame problems are the familiar, routine, and frequent situations that practitioners face.
For teachers and administrators, these problems often involve procedures (e.g., giving a test to
a class you are convinced will copy from one another, too much classroom time taken in
collecting lunch money); malfunctioning equipment (e.g., bulbs that blow out in the overhead
projector); and managing relationships (e.g., conflict between two teachers in the same grade
over what is to be covered in the year’s curriculum). As common as tame problems are, they
still need to be solved. Experienced practitioners have a large repertoire of solutions that fit
particular routine problems. In most districts, policy manuals lay out step-by-step ways to deal
with routine problems. Tame problems, however, are not central to this guide for practitioners.
Wicked problems are.
Wicked problems are ill-defined, ambiguous, complicated, interconnected situations
packed with potential conflict. In organizations, wicked problems arise when people compete
for limited resources (e.g., we cannot fund both the new phonics program and smaller class size
for K-3; we will have to choose); hold conflicting values (e.g., the time that I usually spend
preparing for my classes and reading students’ essays is preventing me form spending time with
my family and earning enough money to make mortgage and car payments); and wrestle with
diverse expectations held by others about what practitioners should be doing (e.g., principals
are supposed to be instructional leaders, competent managers, astute politicians, and skilled
therapists). These complicated, entangled situations produce conflict within each practitioner,
among practitioners, within the organization, and among organizations. Unlike tame problems,
wicked problems cannot be solved. Although wicked problems can be managed, they cannot be
solved. They are insoluble. Calling wicked problems “problems” then, is a misnomer. “Wicked
problems” are really dilemmas.
Dilemmas are messy, complicated, and conflict-filled situations that require undesirable
choices between competing, highly prized values that cannot be simultaneously or fully
satisfied.
Source: Cuban, Larry (2001) How Can I Fix it? Finding Solutions and Managing Dilemmas. New York: Teachers
College Press, 9-10.