Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the readers understanding of critical success factors (CSFs) for taming wicked problems. In particular, it aims to provide practitioners facing wicked problems with practical recommendations of the order in which CSFs should be addressed to ensure the most effective use of time. In order to achieve this, the paper presents  the results of a systematic literature of the topic and ranks the importance of each CSF according to their frequency of appearance in the literature. The ease in which various actors can control each CSF was then evaluated according to the number of parties involved. These two aspects were then combined to develop a ranking in which CSFs should be addressed in order to accomplish the most progress towards taming a wicked problem in the least amount of time. In particular, this research can also be used to facilitate the development of more effective and holistic approached for taming wicked problems or for the improvement of existing ones.