Characteristics of Difficult Problems
As elucidated by Dietrich Dörner and later expanded upon by Joachim Funke, difficult problems have some typical characteristics that can be summarized as follows:
- Intransparency (lack of clarity of the situation)
- commencement opacity
- continuation opacity
- Polytely (multiple goals)
- inexpressiveness
- opposition
- transience
- Complexity (large numbers of items, interrelations and decisions)
- enumerability
- connectivity (hierarchy relation, communication relation, allocation relation)
- heterogeneity
- Dynamics (time considerations)
- temporal constraints
- temporal sensitivity
- phase effects
- dynamic unpredictability
The resolution of difficult problems requires a direct attack on each of these characteristics that are encountered.
Read more about this topic: Problem Solving
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