Wicked problems aren’t evil, they are just wicked hard. There was originally 10 characteristics of wicked problems as they were originally conceived of - but that was specific to the realm of planning & policy. Those were changed to the following six characteristics of “wickedness”.
A wicked problem…
- Isn’t understood until a solution is formulated.
- Have no “stopping rule”, and could be worked on infinitely.
- Don’t have “right or wrong” solutions, only “good and bad” ones.
- Novel and unique from all others
- Have to be solved using “one-shot” solutions, trial and error is difficult because the trials are so hard and expensive.
- Have no alternative solution.