A Strategy for Dealing with Wicked Problems

Sometimes schools throw up wicked problems - problems which have no obvious solution or problems in which every possible solution has serious drawbacks. Left to fester such problems can quickly start to feel overwhelming. Who hasn't lain awake at night worrying about such things from time to time...?

I recently took one such problem to Andy Buck. Andy offers coaching for school leaders and happened to be visiting our school.

Here's how Andy coached me through the problem:

• Make a list of all the possible solutions/outcomes - don't worry about their merits, just spew them out...
• Think you've finished? Try harder. [I eventually came up with 7 possible solutions to my problem]
• Construct a table like the one below and fill it in with as many pros and cons for each of your solutions as you can:

• On a scale of 1-5 rank each of the pros and each of the cons according to their importance or severity. On the pro side 5 is very good, 1 is the least good. On the con side 5 is very bad, 1 is the least bad. Try not to reuse numbers more than 2/3 times - so no marking everything as 5, or 1, or 3 etc. 
• For each of the items in the list subtract the con scores from the pro scores. 
• This should leave you with a preferred outcome or solution - a standout least bad option.