Susan was a trustee of Clean Break, a women only theatre company that works with women who have experienced the criminal justice system. With Dawn’s help, Susan worked with the then Chief Executive to create a mess map. Mapping out the issues and the stakeholders helped us to understand why we could not solve our problem. It did show us who we needed to work with, who we needed to influence and just how sophisticated our stakeholder management and storytelling needed to be if we were to have the impact we wanted.
A Mess Map represents a common mental model of the problem at hand that shows the important “chunks” of information and their relationships with other “chunks”. (Horn, Robert E, & Weber, Robert P. 2007)
Wicked messes combine complex tasks or systems with high levels of social complexity; they are the most challenging problems to work with and it is important to acknowledge upfront that whilst it may be possible to improve/stabilise the situation it may not be possible to solve the problem itself. Sometimes it’s necessary to move beyond the problem to an entirely new reality. Understanding a wicked mess can be difficult as they do not fit into the usual analysis frameworks such as SWOTS. You might find it useful, as we did, to create a mess map.
On as large a piece of paper or whiteboard (digital whiteboard if you’re doing it collectively), as you can find, draw out all your stakeholders (that means all of them!). Then, one by one, draw their connections to others, think about their issues, challenges and priorities. When you have finished it will look really messy and probably a bit alarming, don’t worry about that it is the first stage in building your understanding. Once you have mapped your wicked mess you need to work closely, honestly and creatively with your stakeholders (internally and externally) to try and find a future option that all can sign up to and support whilst acknowledging that it is not an optimal solution. Expect to spend considerable time talking and working up alternative options that you will need to iterate around.
If this is not possible you face the choice of concluding that a solution cannot be found or going for something radically different. Part of your resolution may be about letting go.
Some years ago, Susan and Dawn worked together on just such a situation. An organisation had been created, largely at the behest of its funders, through the merger of three predecessor organisations. The funders’ motivations were quite different and at odds with each other, a fact that was not appreciated until a financial crisis hit. As a legacy of the merger and poor leadership the staff did not work together as a team or share a common vision. Despite several attempts it was not possible to find an acceptable solution and the company went into liquidation. However, a new organisation was born from the ashes and continues to operate nearly twenty years later.
We do hope that this short series on how you might think about and tackle different kinds of problems has been helpful.
Susan and Dawn
References
HORN, R.E. and WEBER ROBERT, P., 2007. New Tools for Resolving Wicked Problems: mess mapping and resolution mapping processes.