Understanding Complexity
Problem Complexity Classifier
Beyond Complexity, To Your Next Frontier
Before deciding what to do about a challenge, it helps to know what kind of challenge it is. Answer twelve statements about one specific problem and this tool will place it on the Alford–Head typology and name the kind of intervention that fits.
In a full diagnostic it works with three others: the same statements answered across your whole stakeholder group, a readiness and team-climate measure, and recorded interviews that surface what people know but rarely say out loud. Together they map every challenge on your table at once — and the sharpest finding is almost always the distance between how differently people see it.
So read the result below as your view, clearly measured. The full picture — and the conversation worth having — comes from seeing everyone else's.
Name the challenge
Write it as people in the organization actually say it. Every statement below refers to this one challenge.
Twelve statements
1 = Strongly disagree · 5 = Strongly agree. There are no right answers.
The Alford–Head typology
Two dimensions, three bands each, nine classes. Difficulty increases downward and to the right.
solution clear
solution unclear
clear
fragmented
in conflict
Adapted from Alford, J., & Head, B. W. (2017). Wicked and less wicked problems: a typology and a contingency framework. Policy and Society, 36(3), 397–413.
Nine classes, nine responses
Expand any class for examples and the methods that suit it.
Two answers, and we will tell you which one applies
Classification is the first move, not the whole method. What comes after it — mapping the assets and people the problem already has, designing the intervention, and setting the cadence that keeps it moving — is chosen by the class you land in. That is why we start here.
Technical → expertise is enough
If your challenge is tame or analytically complex, the honest answer is a subject-matter expert. We have specialists on our bench and will source one when the problem calls for expertise we don't hold — and if you don't need us at all, that is what we will say.
Wicked → expertise alone won't close it
No one holds the whole answer, so no expert can hand it to you. What closes it is practiced capability across multiple teams, running small experiments on a fixed learning cadence — the discipline of Strategic Doing®, which we are credentialed to teach.