Last week, we started this mini-series with some thoughts about tame problems – the ones you know how to solve. Today we are looking at the rather more challenging area of messy problems.
Messes are puzzles, rather than solving them, we resolve their complexities…We are increasingly faced with problems of organized complexity, clusters of interrelated or interdependent problems, or systems of problems. Problems which cannot be solved in relative isolation from one another form messes. We sort out messes via systems methods … (Hancock 2010)
Modern transport systems are a good example of messy problems: lots of complex interconnected systems all with their own histories, protocols and technologies. (The author of the above quote developed his thinking working on the building of Terminal Five at Heathrow).
One of the challenges that many arts and cultural organisations must now consider is how to plan for re-opening their venues, re-starting their programmes, re-engaging with their audiences, selling tickets and keeping afloat financially in a deeply uncertain and rapidly changing context whilst coming to grips with working differently.
Three ways of working with messy problems are.
- Understanding the connections within the system
- Building in time to respond
- Simplifying where possible
Thinking about how you might apply these to planning for a venue re-opening you might want to consider the following.
- Take some time to map out together all the parts of your system and make sure that everyone understands how they now link together. Your usual patterns of working will have been disrupted by the sudden closure of venues and move to online working so the relationships between elements may have changed. Out of date assumptions and habits can be dangerous.
- Build slack time into your planning. Give yourself time to react to unexpected delays or problems – they will happen. Resist the desire to do everything as fast as possible.
- Think about how you could simplify your offering, especially in the early stages as you restart. Just advertise online. Open with scratch/small shows not a 12-handed Shakespeare. Only open some of your galleries for some of the time. Go for a basic catering offer to allow for problems in supply and staffing. Migrate your new online audiences slowly. Think about how many large capital projects have a soft launch to give themselves time.
We hope that this blog has given some ideas. Tomorrow we will be looking at wicked problems.
Susan & Dawn
References
Hancock, D. 2010, Tame, messy and wicked risk leadership, Gower, Farnham, Surrey [U.K.].