Wicked Problem Mapping
Hanyuan Zhang, Kazumi Kanagawa
Mapping a wicked problem helps us explore, grasp, and gain a better understanding of complex issues. Our task in this assignment was to “explore ways of representing issues at different systems levels, distinguishing root causes from consequences, showing interconnections/interdependencies among issues/other problems, and begin to speculate on where the greatest ‘leverage points for change‘ are within the system”.
Topic: Poverty in Pittsburgh
Our chosen topic was Poverty in Pittsburgh. Despite being known for its recent surge in technology related businesses, Pittsburgh carries many issues surrounding disparity and poverty. The average income disparity between white residents and black residents shows a significantly larger gap than the national average, and a growing disparity between wage growth and job growth (fueled by flocking tech companies with high-paying knowledge jobs) underlines how this is an ongoing problem that needs to be addressed.
After our initial research, we created a simple timeline to organize some of the major events and their consequences pertinent to poverty in Pittsburgh. We found this chronological timeline useful because many of the issues that came up had triggers and links to other events, and the historical context provided a clearer picture of why some things had happened. Wicked problems and their potential leverage points are most often place-based and localized. We noticed the importance of such location based perspectives in the research stage as well, which meant we had to gain an understanding of the location’s history.
Mapping a Wicked Problem
The visual mapping process of our topic began with filling in this project canvas of five categories to consider: Infrastructure/Technology Issues, Social Issues, Environmental Issues, Economic Issues, and Political Issues. As this assignment’s focus was grappling with the process of tackling a wicked problem with a transition design approach, the information collected on the topic came from secondary resources. Using a spreadsheet to organize content into the five categories, we first collected relevant information from online resources, then wrote them down on post-its, and clustered them around the relevant categories on the project canvas. We made an effort to consciously rephrase the information we had collected into specific “issue statements” so that our map wasn’t a jumble of stats, but rather a high-level map that covers large ground on the issue of Poverty in Pittsburgh. Some of our more specific facts and statistics became important later on, as evidence of the consequences stemming out from the issues specified on the canvas.
Matrix Mapping
We found ourselves a bit lost after the initial Wicked Problem Map — we couldn’t quite organize our thoughts about connections between the issues, and we found ourselves unsure of where we still had gaps in information to fill. In order to overcome this roadblock, we took a second approach to mapping our research insights. We created a grid that split each of the five categories into root causes, secondary root causes, and consequences. Reorganizing our post-it notes on this matrix allowed us to clearly identify which areas needed more research, and helped us identify the connections between different issues and different categories.
TECHNOLOGY/INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES
In this category, we saw root causes related to the geography and old infrastructure of Pittsburgh creating consequences such as inefficient transportation and bad water quality, both of which are aspects closely connected to everyday life. We also saw districts playing a large role in people’s surroundings — many non profits are concentrated in metropolitan areas.
SOCIAL ISSUES
Under social issues, we identified lack of diversity, industry transition, and opioid addiction as some of the root causes that has lead to consequences such as income disparity, gentrification, drug addiction, and a gap between wage growth and job growth.
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
It may not be very intuitive to connect poverty issues with environmental issues, but we were able to find direct connections such as untreated sewage and storm water being dumped in rivers, which exacerbates Pittsburgh’s sewage overflow problem, which leads to a lack of access to clean water for many people.
ECONOMIC ISSUES
In this category, we looked at how the recession, drastic industry changes/emerging technology boom, and the rise of research institutions have impacted the poverty scene in Pittsburgh. The transition from a steel town to research/tech hub has had an especially large impact in this category because the transition from labor workers to knowledge workers has left many marginalized, especially the racial minorities who often find themselves on the short end of income disparity. In addition to the job opportunity landscape, consequences such as rising real estate prices and gentrification also must be considered in the context of poverty.
POLITICAL ISSUES
We identified redistricting and racial discrimination as root causes in this category, stemming out to consequences such as high arrest rates, gaps in social support systems, and minorities not being a priority for political decisions.
3 Focus Areas
Through the process of wicked problem mapping, we identified three major focus areas that kept reappearing in different places. We found that every single post-it on our canvas could be talked about in the context of either Industry Transition, Sewage Problem, or Racial Issues. Identifying these patterns helped us find connections between the consequences and root causes that overlapped in multiple categories, and gave us a starting point to think about possible leverage points for interventions.
Adapting to Industry Transition
Pittsburgh has been going through an industry transition phase in the from the “Steel Town” era. By shifting focusing onto technology, health care and education, Pittsburgh has been able to transfer itself from a manufacturing economy to a innovation tech hub. However, problems also come along with the fast transition in industry in past twenty years in Pittsburgh. For example, most problems on our map are triggered by the disparity in economic and education, which is one of the main reason causes people suffer in poverty during the industry transition. After the Steel Town era, local residents who suffered from recession period lost their jobs, and they did not have opportunities to learn new skills in order to work in booming industries in Pittsburgh (technology, healthcare or education).
Sewage Problem
The chronic sewage problem of Pittsburgh was one of our focus areas because it characterizes Pittsburgh’s living environment, and we saw connections stemming out to many categories and many stakeholders. For example, the use of lead pipes and maintenance of old sewage systems are the root causes of bad water quality in the infrastructure category, but also affects the environmental category because of increasing lead levels in ground water. We saw connections to political issues as well, because the PWSA (Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority) has not been upholding its public commitment to replacing a certain number of pipes every year, and connections to economic issues where people in poverty are affected by the increased rates for water usage.
Racial Issues
In researching this issue, we came across many studies and quantitative evidence showing racial disparities pertaining to poverty in Pittsburgh. The context of this problem expands itself to a national level and requires broader research and mapping to find leverage points for interventions. However, within Pittsburgh we found connections between education opportunities (racial disparity in pre-schools are greater than other cities), job opportunities (racial minorities are less prepared for tech industry job opportunities), and wage disparities (income disparity is higher than national average).
Process Insights
- Wicked Problem Mapping requires several iterations, and trying out different formats really helps.
- Going from post-it clusters to a matrix with hierarchies allowed us to easily identify research gaps and consider further questions.
- Digitizing the maps played an important role. The process of translating a paper map into a digital map forces you to use concise wording, and reconsider the legitimacy and reasoning behind every line of connection between the different issues. Finalizing our maps as digitized mind maps helped us reorganize our thoughts, and weed out any unnecessary or redundant information or assumptions.
Reflection
I definitely feel like there were overwhelming moments because of the sheer size and complexity of the topic “Poverty in Pittsburgh”. The upside of this was that we captured many of the fundamental characteristics of wicked problems through the process — the interconnectedness of different issues, as well as the multiple layers and depth of each problem and its causes. Many of the words that come up in this post (such as gentrification, inefficient transportation, chronic sewage problem) were wicked problems that needed separate, more in depth mapping on their own, which highlighted how much more research and organizing and synthesizing is required for a thorough mapping process. It was definitely a challenge allowing ourselves to pose big questions that don’t have answers and figuring out how deep to go, where to go deeper, and knowing what to prioritize. It was also interesting to notice how many of the issues had consequences and secondary root causes in one category, but when we got down to the actual root cause, they were shared by many of the other secondary root causes in other categories.
One particular question that came up during this process that we would like further discussion and experimentation on, is how to find leverage points in areas where root causes are closely tied to historical context and therefore can’t be intervened on.
