Wicked Problems in Design Thinking
Source: https://web.mit.edu/jrankin/www/engin_as_lib_art/Design_thinking.pdf ↗
Full text: open-access via OpenAlex ↗
Buchanan imports Rittel and Webber's concept of "wicked problems" into design theory and argues that contemporary design is defined by them.
Wicked problems resist definition: formulating the problem is already a solution, and every solution creates new problems.
For product direction this is the clearest framing of why product work sits between engineering and art without belonging to either — a practice conducted under conditions where the rules of both break down.
Buchanan connects design thinking to a broader tradition of rhetoric and invention, which gives the modern popularisation of "design thinking" a more serious lineage than most of its contemporary advocates inherit.
A short paper, densely argued; worth reading twice.
Central argument
Buchanan argues that design cannot be reduced to fine arts, natural sciences, or social sciences because it operates as a fundamentally different kind of integrative discipline — what he calls a 'new liberal art of technological culture.' Drawing on Horst Rittel's concept of 'wicked problems' (problems that resist definitive formulation and therefore resist the analytical methods of specialized disciplines), Buchanan contends that design's distinctive value lies precisely in its capacity to frame and reframe indeterminate situations rather than solve pre-specified problems. The central thesis is that design thinking is not a subset of science or art but an architectonic practice that connects knowledge across domains in service of intentional human purpose.
Critique
Buchanan's elevation of design into a 'liberal art' risks becoming self-legitimizing: the argument that design is uniquely suited to wicked problems because it resists reduction is structurally difficult to falsify, and the paper offers little operational account of how design thinking actually resolves — rather than merely reframes — the indeterminacy it diagnoses. There is also a tension between celebrating design's resistance to methodological definition and the academic project of building design theory, since a discipline that cannot be pinned down is also one that cannot be rigorously evaluated or improved. The reliance on Dewey's philosophical framework, while intellectually rich, defers the hard empirical question of when integrative design thinking actually produces better outcomes than disciplinary specialization.
Why it matters for product
For a CPO, Buchanan's framing of wicked problems directly explains why product strategy failures so often stem from premature problem definition — locking roadmaps around a solution before the problem space is genuinely understood is exactly the kind of tame-problem thinking he warns against. His argument that design is an integrative discipline — not a downstream execution function — supports the case for embedding product and design leadership at the strategic layer where problem framing happens, not just at the delivery layer where solutions are built. The paper also provides intellectual grounding for why cross-functional discovery is structurally necessary: wicked problems cannot be owned by a single discipline because their boundaries are determined by how you frame them, not by the domain they appear to belong to.