Broadband in America: a "Wicked Game We Play"

Problem wickedness demands tools and methods which create shared understanding and shared commitment.

Because the group or team's understanding of the wicked problem is evolving, productive movement toward a solution requires powerful mechanisms for getting everyone on the same page. There will be volumes of facts, data, studies and reports about a wicked problem, but the shared commitment needed to create durable solution will not live in information or knowledge. Understanding a wicked problem is about collectively making sense of the situation and coming to shared understanding about who wants what. CogNexus Institute: Wicked Problems

Jeff Conklin, Ph.D., founder of the CogNexus Institute, has even written a book about working through Wicked Problems: Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems. For now, I think it's useful to look at their white paper titled Wicked Problems and Social Complexity (well worth the time - recommended!). While his book and white paper address the issue of complex problem solving in the context of an internal organization problem, I would suggest they offer helpful insights for this national problem (we're just not starting with any shared corporate mission or shared paycheck source! - although we all are in this boat together, in a sense).

The gist of the paper is that solving a complex or "wicked" problem requires collaboration. Collaboration requires a shared view of the problem and an agreement to work together to solve it. Fragmentation and Social Complexity work to thwart best efforts to achieve collaboration. I think this approach offers a good way to understand what we are talking about when we talk about the need for a National Broadband Policy. Step One will be to have everyone acknowledge the need for such - at least, to get as broad a consensus as possible to acknowledge the underlying issues that lead us to suggest such a need in the first place. In Dr. Conklin's words, "The antidote to fragmentation is shared understanding and shared commitment."

Collective intelligence is a natural property of socially shared cognition, a natural enabler of collaboration. But there are also natural forces that challenge collective intelligence, forces that doom projects and make collaboration difficult or impossible. These are forces of fragmentation. The concept of fragmentation provides a name and an image for a phenomenon that pulls apart something which is potentially whole. Fragmentation suggests a condition in which the people involved see themselves as more separate than united, and in which information and knowledge are chaotic and scattered. The fragmented pieces are, in essence, the perspectives, understandings, and intentions of the collaborators. Fragmentation, for example, is when the stakeholders in a project are all convinced that their version of the problem is correct.

Solving a complex, "wicked problem" then requires a different approach and different problem solving tools than a rational approach to solving a traditional problem. One tendency when faced with a complex problem is to work harder and apply linear tools that we have had previous success with - it's a very rational, if doomed approach. See the image below.

In contrast, consider the diagram below, where the jagged lines involve practical experiments with solutions that reveal nuances of the problem, so that both the nature of the problem and the solution evolve over time - and as this paper explains - they evolve together FOREVER. In other words, with a wicked problem you never arrive at a solution, because the nature of the problem is that it is dynamic.

The paper goes on to describe how multiple competing solutions can muddy the waters of the iterative solution/problem approach in the second diagram. This is where social complexity enters the picture, because complex problems most often occur in a socially dynamic situation. Things get further complicated when there is an element of technical complexity. We face all three of these fragmenting forces when we consider how to develop a National Broadband Policy. See the diagram below.

The white paper really starts to get interesting when it gets to the section on how complex problems are typically dealt with, describing two typical reactions: Studying and Taming. A hint - neither is effective, according to Dr. Conklin.

Studying the Wicked Problem seems rational - "This issue is so complex, we need to form a task force to study it and come back to us with recommendations." That is, in fact, in the CEO's job description, isn't it, to form task forces to study problems? The catch with this approach is, the studying process often can take so much time and consume so many resources, and the ever present risk is the dreaded "Paralysis by Analysis." While a little studying can be helpful, this solution path quickly reaches its limits.

On the other hand, Taming the Wicked Problem generally gets the group of stakeholders pretty quickly into "The Games People Play." Tying in our problems with broadband policy, consider these cases below, keeping in mind our current executive (FCC), legislative (Congress), and judicial (Supreme Court) regulatory and legal approaches to telecommunications problems in general, and to broadband infrastructure in particular.

Taming Methods

1. Lock Down the Problem Definition. The risk is defining the problem too narrowly, with a solution in mind, all the better to be able to declare victory. SUPREME COURT BRAND X AND FCC DECISION TO REMOVE OPEN NETWORK REQUIREMENT (PROBLEM WAS "TOO TIGHT REGULATION.")?

2. Assert that the Problem is Solved. Combining artful definition of the problem (see above) with mustering of ample evidence, this is another way of making the problem go away (but not really). CELLULAR COMPANIES CLAIMING TO OFFER WIDESPREAD AVAILABILITY OF "BROADBAND"?

3. Specify objective parameters by which to measure the solution's success. Involves locking down the problem, then measuring success objectively, leaving the real problem over in the areas not measured. DEFINE BROADBAND AS 200 KBS AND UP, COUNT BB AVAILABILITY IN ONE PLACE IN THE COUNTY AS AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE IN THE COUNTY?

4. Cast the problem as "just like" a previous problem that has been solved. This approach usually ignores or filters out differences from previous situations, to make the problem simpler and more like what was previously addressed with some success. THE PROBLEM IS CAPITAL AVAILABILITY, WE NEED A RURAL LOAN PROGRAM LIKE THE UNIVERSAL SERVICE FUND (USF) OR THE RURAL ELECTRIFICATION AGENCY (REA)?

5. Give up on trying to get a good solution to the problem. I think that this is where many in the FCC and the Congress are currently - keeping their heads down and hoping someone else will come along to solve this - LATER?

6. Declare that there are just a few possible solutions, and focus on selecting from among these options. Limiting the solution set has the appearance of making the problem simpler, but is an artificial construct. IT WILL BE EITHER CABLE OR TELECOM THAT BUILDS THIS NETWORK?

Moving beyond these false methodologies, Dr. Conklin suggests that there is one major hurdle to avoid in overcoming these forces of fragmentation (wicked problems, social complexity, and technical complexity) - namely, the tendency to place blame.

The notion of fragmentation points to all of these problems, but it is pretty abstract. Because it points deep into the culture and practices of project work, it is difficult to observe fragmentation directly. There is, however, a more observable indicator of fragmentation: blame. Instead of seeing the systemic nature of project challenges and the value of social diversity, we tend to see a big mess, to view it as the result of incompetence, and to blame each other for it.

Until we can move beyond blaming "incumbents" for causing this problem, blaming "incompetent bureaucrats and corrupt politicians" for failing to drive wise public policy, blaming "upstart fly-by-night companies" and "socialistic governments" for seeking to put the public sector in front of the private sector, blaming "free-riding IT content companies" for seeking to use networks without paying for them - I could go on and on - until we can move past this Blame Culture, we will not be any nearer to forging a common National Broadband Policy that we can all live with.

I'll close with Dr. Conklin's summary - he puts it better than I could.

The antidote for fragmentation is coherence. How, then, do we create coherence? In organizations and project teams - in situations where collaboration is the life blood of success - coherence amounts to shared understanding and shared commitment. Shared understanding of meaning and context, and of the dimensions and issues in the problem. Shared commitment to the processes of project work and to the emergent solution matrix.

Coherence means that stakeholders have shared meaning for key terms and concepts, that they are clear about their role in the effort, that together they have a shared understanding of the background for the project and what the issues are, and that they have a shared commitment to how the project will reach its objectives and achieve success. Coherence means that the project team understands and is aligned with the goals of the project and how to reach them. Coherence means that a wicked problem is recognized as such, and appropriate tools and processes are constantly used to "defragment" the project. With increased coherence, more collective intelligence becomes available to deal with change and complexity. Coherence means that despite social complexity there is a sense of ability and confidence in crafting shared understanding and negotiating shared meaning.

I'm going to get this book and dive down deeper on the potential of shared understanding, shared commitment, and dialogue mapping. I think this approach holds great potential for bringing together the multitude of viewpoints that arise whenever the issue of National Broadband Policy is brought up.

If it's going to be a "Wicked Game We Play," then we better start the discussion with a set of shared rules. I just hate it when my family breaks into an argument about the rules and how to play the game, and loses sight of the fun we have when we play together - with a shared understanding and shared commitment that we've set aside time to play a game in order to have fun. For too long, we've avoided this discussion on our shared interests in building a 21st century broadband infrastructure, but the circumstances are forcing us together to figure out the Wicked Problem of Broadband and how to get a National Broadband Policy.