We’ve all heard about VUCA (Volatile, Unpredictable, Complex and Ambiguous)  – https://safetyrisk.net/kiss-safety-in-a-vuca-world/) and now there is BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-Linear and Incomprehensible – https://executiveacademy.at/en/knowledge/leadership/bani-vs-vuca-how-leadership-works-in-the-world-of-tomorrow) but the reality is, life, being and risk are Wicked.

We’ve known about ‘wicked problems’ for years. These are problems characterised by:

1. There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.
2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but better or worse.
4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.
5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a “one-shot operation”; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt counts significantly.
6. Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan.
7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
8. Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
9. The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem’s resolution.
10. The social planner has no right to be wrong (i.e., planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate).

Read here: https://safetyrisk.net/safety-wicked-problem/

Risk and safety are a wicked problem. The proposal is quite simple – humans are fallible, risk is unknown, the future is unpredictable, the world is random and learning requires risk. One of the global experts in wicked problems is Dr Craig Ashhurst who is a colleague of SPoR. You can read about Dr Ashhurst here: https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Craig-Ashhurst-2132771207

Dr Ashhurst has developed a method called ‘Transcoherence’ for helping address wicked problems. Craig has a very good chapter on his thinking in this book: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429426407-13/transcoherence-craig-ashhurst Critical elements of Dr Ashhurst’s Transcoherence are included in SEEK Methodology.

Risk is an intractable problem, it cannot be ‘solved’ or ‘fixed’.

The trouble is, the more we talk about safety as simply a complex problem, the more we tend to try to develop methods to ‘fix’ things.

In the scope of acknowledging wicked problems, all attempts at fixing simple make things worse eg. increase clutter and incomprehensibility. The fixation on reducing clutter itself doesn’t make a wicked problem more ‘fixable’. Trying to fix risk as if it is just a complex problem doesn’t work and never can work. This is why even efforts at decluttering won’t work unless such efforts recognise the nature of ‘wicked problems’

At the moment Dr Nippin Annad and I are writing a book on SEEK Investigations. SEEK is the SPoR method for tackling investigations that recognises the nature of wicked problems. As part of our book we are looking at the most prominent investigations methods on the safety market and none of them identify wicked problems as an issue. So, what happens in investigations that don’t recognise wicked problems is that when one method doesn’t work, Safety invents another one. The methods we are analysing in the third chapter of out book deconstruct the following:

1. AcciMap: Based on Rasmussen’s risk management framework
2. Bow-Tie
3. Damaging Energies
4. DMAIC
5. Fault Tree analysis
6. Fishbone
7. FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis)
8. FMECA (Failure Mode, Effect, and Criticality Analysis)
9. FRAM
10. HAZOP (Hazard and Operability Study)
11. Human Factors
12. ICAM
13. MTO-analysis (Man, Technology and Organization)
14. PEEPO framework (People, Environment, Equipment, Procedures, and Organisation
15. Pre-accident investigations
16. SCAT (Systematic Cause Analysis Technique)
17. STAMP Systems Theoretic Accident Modelling and Processes
18. STEP (Sequential Timed Events Plotting Procedures) and MORT (Management Oversight and Risk Tree)
19. SWIFT (So What If It Happens?)
20. Tap Root
21. Tripod Beta

Most of these investigation methods so NOT articulate their found Methodology (philosophy) or the ‘ethic’ that drives their method. Indeed, none articulate an ethic of investigating and this is also problematic.

Our book is expected to be released in the second half of 2026.

Wicked problems are beyond complex. The idea that safety problems can be ‘fixed’ is a safety myth. The sooner we come to grips with the fact that risk and safety are a wicked problem, the sooner we stop chasing rainbows, re-framing safety spin (eg. HOP) and address the need for new methods to tackle risk that include the recognition of safety as ‘wicked’.

Methods that recognise wickedity stop trying to fix things and better ‘tackle’ the problem. This language is critical. This is where the myths of S2, NV, SD, HOP and RE continue to perpetuate the idea that reframing the problem can ‘solve’ the problem of risk. But it doesn’t really matter anyway, because all of the so-called New View approaches to safety have no Methodology or Method.

You can’t tackle wicked problems with a collection of slogans (not principles). When you issue stupid slogans like ‘blame fixes nothing and ‘human error is normal’ you simply add to the problem.

So, does your investigations method recognise ‘wicked problems’? or, does the outcome of your investigation method propose ‘fixes’ and ‘controls’ as if safety is NOT wicked?