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Wicked and Tame Problems The art of public deliberation

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Saturday Night Live explains “debating”

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Dr. Martin Carcasson

§ Communications professor at CSU

§  “Basics of Deliberative Perspective”

§ Provides guidance and ground rules for participating in public discussions in ways to avoid adversarial dead lock and just arguing

§ Seen as a new and necessary next step in communications tactics to avoid the grid lock exemplified by current national politics

§ Understanding tame and wicked problems is at its core

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Tame Problems

§ Technical in nature and can be solved through scientific needs

§ Divisible into manageable parts

§ Efforts to solve them are primarily judged in terms of efficiency -  How few resources were spent to solve the problem?

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Wicked Problems

§  Inherently involve competing underlying values, paradoxes, and trade-offs

§ Cannot be solved by science

§ Every solution creates a new set of problems

§ Require tough choices

§ Must be managed rather than solved

§ Require adaptive changes rather than technical ones

§ Need effective collaboration across multiple perspectives

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We would be happy to help.

The problems facing education are increasingly complex, wicked problems

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Three primary forms of public problem solving

§ Adversarial -  competitive, pro/con, activists, interest groups, agendas, votes, elections,

coalitions, campaigns, firm perspectives

§ Expert -  data focused, research, facts, technical solutions, bureaucracies, highly-

educated/specialized perspectives

§ Deliberative -  Cooperative, participatory, collaborative, transformative, civic focused

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Drawbacks of adversarial processes

§ Focuses on “winning” vs. problem solving

§ Relies on narrow values

§ Focuses on blaming (them) vs. accepting accountability (us)

§ Plays into the flaws of human natures

§ Favors entrenched, loud voices

§ Negative effects of polarization, cynicism and apathy

§ Prescribes narrow role for citizens -  Voters, consumers, or spectators

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Drawbacks of expert-dominated processes

§ By definition, experts are focused on a specific aspect of the problem

§ Focus on being value free – can tell us what something is or could be, but not what it SHOULD be

§ Relies on data, but wicked problems aren’t solvable by data

§ Undermined in a polarized environment

§ Data-driven expert solutions don’t change behavior

§ Shuts out the public and non-experts

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Meanwhile…

§ We face serious problems without technical solutions

§ They involve paradoxes, competing values, and require compromise and tough choices

§ They need productive collaboration, innovation, and coordinated action across perspectives from many areas of society

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The deliberative process

§  Involves citizens, not just experts or politicians

§ Often works with facilitators to help citizens come together and consider relevant facts and values from multiple points of views

§ Listens to multiple points of view and thinks about the various options before forming opinions

§ Considers underlying tension, tough choices and varied consequences

§  Is will to refine and adapt their opinions and interests

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Drawbacks with the deliberative process

§ Not including enough divergent opinion leads to false consensus -  Dissent not heard, wishful thinking supported, decisions faulty or unsustainable,

and attract strong opposition

§ Premature closure leads to false polarization -  Sparks misunderstanding, distrust, one-sided solutions, fact wars, wishful

thinking dominates, spirals of conflict

§ Time consuming

§ Expects a lot of the public

§ Difficult to attract diverse audiences

§ Still difficult to move from talk to action

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What we want from the Insider’s Academy

§ Move beyond disconnected, simplistic, input sessions so you can engage with us and each other to understand tough choices

§ Establish a shared understanding of our operational challenges and framework of decision making

§ Develop better trust, social capital, and stronger civic networks to provide positive feedback loops

§ Align understanding and actions across individual, public, private, and non-profit lines

§ Engage with problem-solvers

§  Increase the qualities of decisions being made

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We would be happy to help.

Do You Have Any Questions?