WICKED PROBLEMS

An investigation of how to “advance engineering concepts for cultural use.”

Madhavan, senior director of programs at the National Academy of Engineering and author of Applied Minds: How Engineers Think, emphasizes that there are three categories of engineering problems: hard, soft, and messy. Hard problems are solved by tools, a formula, or perhaps another invention. Soft problems involve human behavior, so they are not solved, only “resolved.” Traffic congestion can be eliminated only at a cost no one will pay, so solutions are never optimal, only “good enough.” Messy problems emerge from ideology—e.g., the refusal to wear masks during the pandemic. Madhavan’s solution to messy problems involves words like “reframing” or phrases like “respecting cultural sensitivities.” In fact, systems engineering has a good record with all three categories, which, taken together, form the “wicked problems” of the title. Madhavan extols the work of the Wright Brothers, whose first flying machine “transformed the world.” However, it didn’t transform those machines into useful transportation because learning to fly while actually flying was dangerous, so piloting remained an occupation for adventurous young males for the next two decades. Madhavan maintains that the still obscure Edward Link deserves as much recognition as the Wrights. His Link Trainer, now in universal use, converted piloting from a risky game into a profession in which students learn their craft on the ground rather than inside a machine that could kill them. The systems engineer’s job is so complex that each of Madhavan’s six chapters discusses an area that they deal with: efficiency, vagueness, vulnerability, safety, maintenance, and resilience. His concluding epilogue is less a summary than a high-minded, well-informed criticism of engineering education’s concentration on technical achievement to the near exclusion of “cultural, ethical, social, and environmental issues.”

A thoughtful review of how engineers approach their most intractable problems.