Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World
Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World

Author: Guru Madhavan

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2024-03-26

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 0393651479

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An ode to systems engineers—whose invisible work undergirds our life—and an exploration of the wicked problems they tackle. Our world is filled with pernicious problems. How, for example, did novice pilots learn to fly without taking to the air and risking their lives? How should cities process mountains of waste without polluting the environment? Challenges that tangle personal, public, and planetary aspects—often occurring in health care, infrastructure, business, and policy—are known as wicked problems, and they are not going away anytime soon. In linked chapters focusing on key facets of systems engineering—efficiency, vagueness, vulnerability, safety, maintenance, and resilience—engineer Guru Madhavan illuminates how wicked problems have emerged throughout history and how best to address them in the future. He examines best-known tragedies and lesser-known tales, from the efficient design of battleships to a volcano eruption that curtailed global commerce, and how maintenance of our sanitation systems constitutes tikkun olam, or repair of our world. Braided throughout is the uplifting tale of Edwin Link, an unsung hero who revolutionized aviation with his flight trainer. In Link’s story, Madhavan uncovers a model mindset to engage with wickedness. An homage to society’s innovators and maintainers, Wicked Problems offers a refreshing vision for readers of all backgrounds to build a better future and demonstrates how engineering is a cultural choice—one that requires us to restlessly find ways to transform society, but perhaps more critically, to care for the creations that already exist.

Better Business Better Future
Better Business Better Future

Author: Elisabet Lagerstedt

Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand

Published: 2022-01-01

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 9152707954

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An excellent read for entrepreneurs, corporate business leaders, board members, and strategists aiming to future-proof their business by integrating sustainability into the very core. This book offers a way forward, helps you understand the Sustainability Revolution, and provides valuable insights into the journeys and strategic choices of sustainability trailblazers such as Patagonia, Interface, Ørsted, Unilever, IKEA, Oatly, and others. Because you are not the first company to discover the potential in doing well by doing good, or as William Gibson said: "The future is already here - it's just not very evenly distributed". Still, many wicked problems urgently need innovative solutions. Solutions that the world of business is particularly well equipped to address through the ingenuity, creativity, collaboration, and resources that it can so often call forth more effectively and efficiently than other human organizations. Here and now, this requires a move beyond business as usual and a transformation into Better Business.

Applied Minds: How Engineers Think
Applied Minds: How Engineers Think

Author: Guru Madhavan

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2015-08-03

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0393248003

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“Engineers are titans of real-world problem-solving. . . . In this riveting study of how they think, [Guru Madhavan] puts behind-the-scenes geniuses . . . center stage.”—Nature In this engaging account of innovative triumphs, Guru Madhavan examines the ways in which engineers throughout history created world-changing tools, from ATMs and ZIP codes to the digital camera and the disposable diaper. Equal parts personal, practical, and profound, Applied Minds charts a path to a future where we borrow strategies from engineering to find inspired solutions to our most pressing challenges.

Exploring Wicked Problems
Exploring Wicked Problems

Author: Joseph Bentley PhD

Publisher: Archway Publishing

Published: 2020-04-21

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 1480889458

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Former Secretary of State George Shultz once drew a distinction between “problems you can solve and problems you can only work at.” These two types of problems have names: They are tame or wicked. Many people believe that their problems are “wicked,” yet few seem to understand what should be done with them. Wicked problems are messy, confusing, unstable, ill-structured, and ambiguous. This book explores the timely issue of wicked problems – what they are and why they are important. The authors open the door to a greater understanding of wicked problems and an appreciation for their complexity, sharing insights and recommendations on how to tackle them to make positive and productive changes in relationships, at home, and at work. Making one’s way successfully through the mess of obstacles and impediments that wicked problems present puts maximum pressure on our capabilities and stretches our tolerance for confusion, conflict, controversy, and chaos. Get guidance on grappling with the wicked problems in your life by increasing your knowledge about what they are and why they are so important to keep working at – even if they can’t be completely resolved.

The Wicked Company
The Wicked Company

Author: Marcus Kirsch

Publisher: Wicked Company

Published: 2019-11

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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WE LIVE IN AN ERA OF WICKED PROBLEMS. Can your company keep up? Technology and the evolution of the experience economy have created a reality that most companies can't just buy or work their way into. These are wicked problems: issues that continue to evolve and morph beyond your solutions even as you form them. The days of tame problems-mass production, building bridges, solving for x-are behind us, but we're still designing companies to solve those tame problems. Marcus Kirsch is here to change all that. Anyone can create a wicked company, but not without implementing ways of working and thinking that are as comprehensive and complex as the problems you're trying to solve. The Wicked Company provides a roadmap to developing a mindset about operations, corporate capability, governance, and the people your organization is made up of that will help you identify, evaluate, and solve wicked problems before they slow you down-and before the other guys have a chance to catch up.

Climate Change: A Wicked Problem
Climate Change: A Wicked Problem

Author: Frank P. Incropera

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 1107109078

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A pragmatic, no-holds-barred assessment of climate change, for anyone wishing to be fully informed on the topic.

Practicing Sustainability
Practicing Sustainability

Author: Guru Madhavan

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-10-19

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1461443490

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Sustainability applies to everybody. But everybody applies it differently, by defining and shaping it differently—much as water is edged and shaped by its container. It is conceived in absolute terms but underpinned by a great diversity of relatively “green”—and sometimes contradictory—practices that can each make society only more or less sustainable. In Practicing Sustainability, chefs, poets, music directors, evangelical pastors, skyscraper architects, artists, filmmakers, as well as scientific leaders, entrepreneurs, educators, business executives, policy makers, and the contrarians, shed light on our understanding of sustainability and the role that each of us can play. Each contributor addresses what sustainability means, what is most appealing about the concept, and what they would like to change to improve the perception and practice of sustainability. What emerges from their essays is a wide spectrum of views that confirm an important insight: Sustainability is pursued in different ways not only due to different interpretations, but also because of varying incentives, trade-offs, and altruistic motives. Practicing and achieving sustainability starts with a willingness to look critically at the concept. It also means enabling rich and vigorous discussion based on pragmatism and common sense to determine a framework for best ideas and practices. With time and the much needed critical thinking, sustainable development will become a more integral part of our culture. By sharing experiences and crisp insights from today’s savants, Practicing Sustainability serves as a stepping stone to the future.

Design Thinking in the Middle Grades
Design Thinking in the Middle Grades

Author: Reagan Curtis

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2023-03-24

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 0807767808

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Too often, mathematics and science are taught in isolation from each other and from meaningful problems that matter to students. This book draws on the authors' experiences with teacher colleagues, including time spent in their classrooms co-developing and refining lessons. The core of their approach is to encourage learners to pursue solutions to everyday challenges through design-based learning cycles. Students use mathematical modeling to describe or summarize a phenomenon, predict which potential solutions may be successful, and/or to test actual performance against predictions. The authors emphasize connecting grade-appropriate science and math content standards and integrating literacy with evidence-based argument through design briefs and presentations. Teachers will learn how to support productive struggle and structure group learning that promotes equity, while teaching in the classroom or virtually as needed. The middle grades are a pivotal time to engage the next generation so that they are prepared to solve tomorrow's challenges. Classroom teachers, preservice educators, and faculty in teacher education programs can use Design Thinking in the Middle Grades as a foundational text for math, science, and integrated STEM teaching.

Educational Leadership for a More Sustainable World
Educational Leadership for a More Sustainable World

Author: Mike Bottery

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-02-25

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 1472568281

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Educational Leadership for a More Sustainable World argues that current crises in educational policies and practice, including the recruitment and retention of educational leaders, ultimately derive from the interactions between four key challenges which also underpin current global and societal issues of sustainability: A culture of consumption Global energy demands Climate change Emerging population patterns Mike Bottery argues that problems in dealing with these four global challenges, as well as many crises in education, are in large part due to a failure to appreciate their complex interactions and effects, and of the need for sufficiently complex responses. The result is that many policies in many areas hinder rather than facilitate appropriate solutions. However, by showing that the dynamics of crises in educational sustainability have many similarities to those of global systems, this book argues that the adoption of a number of core practices and values can help educational leaders develop greater sustainability, not only in their own area of activity but can also help them make a valuable contribution to greater sustainability at the global level as well.