Living Guide to Social Innovation Labs
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ENG
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  • Introduction
  • Seeing
    • Understanding Complex Problems
      • Challenge Statements
      • Systems Thinking
      • Systems Mapping
      • Leverage Points
      • Wicked Questions
    • Design Research
      • Design Thinking
      • Ethnography
      • Interviews
      • Journey Mapping
      • Service Blueprint
      • Sensemaking
      • Dashboards
    • Systemic Design
    • Identifying and Engaging Key People
      • Stakeholders
      • Stakeholder Mapping
  • Doing
    • Co-Creation
      • Convening
        • Is Convening the Right Tool?
        • Types of Convening
      • Facilitation
      • Collective Impact
      • Ideation
    • Prototyping
      • Prototyping in a Lab Context
      • Testing
      • Types and Modalities
      • Prototyping Approaches
    • Scaling
      • Growth Thresholds
      • Scaling Up, Out, Deep
      • Tactics for Scaling
      • Scaling Strategy
    • Monitoring, Measuring and Communicating Impact
      • Types of Evaluation
      • Logic Models
      • Measures and Metrics
      • Standards of Evidence
      • Evaluating Complexity
      • Communicating Impact
  • Being
    • Innovation Labs and Process
      • Agile Project Management
      • Value Proposition
      • Theory for Change
      • Business Models
    • Resourcing and Team
      • Lab Partners
      • Team Expertise and Skills
      • Wellbeing of Remote Teams
      • Funding
    • Inclusion and Equity Practice
      • Power Structures
      • Innovation for Real Transformation
      • Truth and Reconciliation
      • Recommendations for Inclusive Practice
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  • What are 'complex problems' anyway? They are:
  • Three Perspectives to Understanding a Problem

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  1. Seeing

Understanding Complex Problems

The more that you can understand a complex problem, the more you can understand your options in tackling it.

PreviousSeeingNextChallenge Statements

Last updated 5 years ago

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What are 'complex problems' anyway? They are:

  • Difficult to address and change with every attempt to address it

  • Involve many stakeholders with different values and priorities

  • Have causes and drivers that are interdependent and filled with uncertainties

  • Are unique and have no precedent

  • Do not have definitive criteria or indications for the right solutions

We are surrounded by problems that are complex. Think of declining species or the warming of our oceans, rising housing costs, socio-economic inequality and the list goes on. What complex problems are you working on, and how are you learning about them?

Three Perspectives to Understanding a Problem

There are three perspectives to understanding a problem; individual, institutional, and systemic.

A systems perspective helps us see the complexity of a challenge, to identify who is or needs to be involved and to decide where to develop particular actions.

Key Resources

Adapted from Camillus, Harvard Business Review. , 2008.

David Snowden. Cynefin Framework Introduction.

Strategy as a Wicked Problem
http://cognitive-edge.com/videos/cynefin-framework-introduction/
Adapted from Zimmerman, Westley, & Quinn Patton. Getting to Maybe, 2006 as cited in Weinlick & Velji, Social Innovation Field Guide, Think Jar Collective. https://thinkjarcollective.com/tools/social-innovation-lab-field-guide/
Source: MaRS Solutions Lab