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"Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them."

(Lawrence J. Peter)

HELP? – A CALL FOR WICKED PROBLEMS

This is not the help section to find out how ADN works, although ADN might be considered as a wicked problem itself...

This is a call for applying our expertise to real world problems - but not any. We are not interested in problems whose solution might be true-or-false, but unique problems who are "wicked" ones.

If you work in an organisation that deals with long-term social, commercial or organisational policy planning, then you've got wicked problems. You may not call them by this name, but you know what they are.

"Wicked problems" is a term for a special sort of tricky interrelated problems of social, economical, political, cultural & environmental nature and they usually involve the behaviour and mindsets of large groups of people. Even to recognize these problems is difficult, maybe if "yes" and "no" answers do not easily solve to your problem, you are in a wicked situation.

Characteristics of wicked problems are e.g.:*

• Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
• Constraints and resources to solve the problem change over time.
• Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation"; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.
• Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but better or worse.
• Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
• There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.

(*by Horst Rittel, Melvin Weber and Jeff Conklin)

We give a hand if one or a few are overstrained by interelated problems which affect a lot of people. These dynamic situations are also called "social messes" and deeply influence and complicate planning as well as decision making in leadership.

To deal with a system of messes from an individual view of leadership is our applied speciality. If you have a decent mess in front of you, or if you expect a set of interrelated problems to create a big mess around you in the near future, let us know.

Do not stick your head in the sand - there are answers to e.g. the World Economic Crisis and you can find appropriate reactions to it. Here the aim is not to find the truth, but to improve some characteristic of the world where people live. Planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate. Deal with it like with a wicked problem and get qualified for it - no answers, no permanent solutions only better adaptation.

We do not provide answers. We qualify you to deal with your question yourself.

Rules of the process:

• ADN undertakes to strictly treat information confidentially.
• We start with an informal meeting and you decide about the further time frame.
• The process can be stopped bilaterally at any given moment.
• Evaluation on a daily and weekly basis.
• A multimedial report including the protocol, an analysis of the interaction and possible "solutions" compiled so far concerning the given wicked problem.

The minimal cost for even a four week (or more) expert monitoring by a ADN team are only travel costs and other incurred expenses plus 1 Euro. You decide about the value of the interaction in the end and donate only what you think it was worth. One symbolic Euro as a donation to the Association is enough if we fail to satisfy you with our service.

See our service as personalized unconventional decision design aid. Guts, sustainable innovation and a plan is what you need in a crisis, not a shift of responsibility to an extern consultant agency.

We have limited resources and there are unlimited problems.

Challenge us, maybe we challenge your problem...