Modelling 2020’s Risk: Examining Rittel & Webber’s ‘Wicked Problems’ – 10 March 2022

  • 10th March 2022
  • 9:00 /GMT/ or 16:00 /GMT/
  • Webinar

For any student of strategic risk and crisis management, Rittel & Webber’s 1973 paper ‘Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning’, in which they introduced the concepts of Wicked Problems, is one of the foundational pieces of academic work that underpins many of the models and theories we use until today.

As we enter into the increasing VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) risk environment of the 2020’s, it is clear that the concepts that Rittell and Webber were describing fifty years ago are as much, if not more, relevant today as they were then.

This is an opportunity to explore some of the concepts associated with Wicked Problem, as well as the way that those ideas can help us to model, prepare for and engage with the increasingly high-impact, complex and chaotic events that we are seeing on a recurring basis. 

Dr David Rubens, Executive Director of the ISRM, is widely recognised as one of the leading commentators on Wicked Problems, and the way that they impact on all aspects of our strategic risk and crisis planning, management and capability development.