Tackling Wicked Problems: Why Acerola Strategies’ Approach Outshines Traditional Consulting
Understanding Wicked Problems in Organizations
In today’s volatile environment, many organizations and communities are grappling with “wicked problems” – challenges so complex and interconnected that they defy straightforward solutions. Wicked problems are multifaceted issues with no clear definition or single solution, often involving diverse stakeholders with conflicting values. Classic examples include digital transformation, sustainability and environmental impact, cybersecurity, cultural change, and other adaptive challenges that evolve over time. Unlike “tame” technical problems that experts can solve with existing know-how, wicked problems are dynamic and resistant to linear fixes. As design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber noted, these dilemmas have “incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements” – every attempted solution shifts the problem, and there’s no point at which you can declare them fully solved. In other words, wicked describes the problem’s stubborn nature, not malicious intent.
To illustrate, consider a classic analogy from complexity science: baking a cake, launching a rocket, and raising a child. Baking a cake is simple – follow a recipe and you reliably get a cake. Launching a rocket is complicated – it requires expert knowledge and careful planning, yet with enough analysis the task is repeatable and largely predictable. But raising a child is complex – no amount of instruction guarantees success because each context is unique and what works in one case may fail in another. The leap from complicated to complex is huge: complicated problems might be hard but yield to expertise, whereas complex or wicked problems involve high uncertainty, emergent behavior, and even disagreement on what the problem really is. In an organization, this might mean that a technical challenge like installing an IT system (complicated but with a knowable solution) contrasts sharply with a wicked challenge like transforming the company’s culture – where stakeholders have different perspectives, and there is no “right” answer or end state. Wicked problems demand a different mindset and approach precisely because they cannot be tamed by analysis alone or solved by authority.
Why Traditional Consulting Falls Short
Traditional consulting methods – the kind many companies have relied on for decades – struggle to make a dent in wicked problems. Conventional consulting typically follows a linear, expert-driven playbook: consultants define the problem, break it into parts, analyze data, then deliver a detailed plan or “best practice” solution. This can work for well-bounded technical or complicated issues (e.g. cutting costs in a factory or optimizing a supply chain). However, applied to complex adaptive challenges, this approach often backfires. There are several fundamental shortcomings of the traditional consulting model when it meets a wicked problem:
Assumption of Linear Cause-and-Effect: Standard consulting treats organizations like machines that can be engineered – “implement this policy and you will get X result.” In reality, complex systems behave nonlinearly; small changes can cascade into big effects unpredictably. Rigid plans that assume straight cause-and-effect often create an illusion of control while the real system dynamics evade the plan. As researchers Reeves and Levin observe, traditional approaches “ignore higher-order effects” and tend to “suppress adaptive learning” by trying to control too tightly. In a wicked problem, attempts to force a predetermined plan can even make things worse.
Overreliance on Expert Knowledge: Consultants typically bring in expert specialists to devise solutions. But for an adaptive challenge, even top experts cannot foresee the emergent outcomes. Leadership scholar Ronald Heifetz warns that the biggest leadership failure is treating an adaptive challenge like a technical problem – the former requires the people involved to learn and generate solutions together. Traditional consulting, with solutions handed down from “on high,” misses that the answers must emerge through collective learning and local insight. The result is often a slick report that clients cannot implement because it fails to account for on-the-ground realities and the need for stakeholders to buy in and change behavior.
Static Plans for Evolving Situations: A hallmark deliverable of old-school consulting is a fixed strategic plan or multi-year roadmap. But wicked problems evolve rapidly – the context may shift even between the analysis phase and execution. By the time a traditional consultant’s plan is delivered, new stakeholders may have appeared, the market may have moved, or the problem itself may have morphed. Without mechanisms to continually update and adjust, a static plan quickly becomes obsolete. As Rittel and Webber famously noted, the classical planning approach “is not applicable to the problems of open societal systems.” A beautifully crafted strategy that sits on a shelf is useless if reality has already changed. This is why so many five-year plans for complex issues yield little action – the world won’t hold still for your plan.
One-Size-Fits-All “Best Practices”: Under pressure to deliver quick results, consultants may default to familiar frameworks or copy-paste solutions that worked elsewhere. But wicked problems are essentially unique – what succeeded in one city or company may flop in another because the stakeholder networks and conditions differ. Yet the traditional model often sells generic playbooks. The outcome is a mismatch to local context: canned strategies that miss key nuances, and recommendations that fail to gain traction. Stakeholders don’t buy in to a formula that doesn’t fit their reality, so implementation falters. It’s telling that studies commonly find around 70% of large change initiatives fail, often because social dynamics and complexity were underestimated in a one-size-fits-all plan.
Limited Stakeholder Engagement: Traditional consulting tends to sideline the very people who have to implement the change – employees, mid-managers, community members. Consultants come in as experts, but without deep engagement, those on the ground lack ownership of the solution. In complex problems, front-line stakeholders hold crucial knowledge and will be the ones adapting day-to-day. If they aren’t engaged in shaping the solution, even the best analysis can fall flat. A PowerPoint deck from a consulting team means little if the client’s people haven’t built the relationships and understanding to carry it out. As one Project Management Institute report bluntly stated, traditional analysis is insufficient for the complexity of wicked problems – what’s needed is a much deeper, collaborative understanding among stakeholders. Without that, the “solution” won’t take root.
These limitations explain why many expensive consulting projects fail to create lasting change when adaptive challenges are involved. Time and again, organizations have hired top firms for thorny issues (culture change, economic revitalization, etc.), only to find that a glossy strategy “stalls when company culture and complexity drag down execution.” It’s not that the consultants are unintelligent or ill-intentioned; it’s that the wrong approach is applied. A linear, expert-led approach is simply ill-suited to problems that demand nonlinear, collaborative, and iterative responses. Recognizing this gap is the first step – the next is to embrace a fundamentally different way of tackling wicked problems.
Embracing Adaptive, Collaborative Approaches
Confronting a wicked problem “requires a fundamentally different consulting methodology – one that is iterative, participatory, and comfortable with uncertainty,” as one analysis notes. In recent years, a range of alternative frameworks have gained prominence, all aiming to deal with complexity on its own terms. They go by many names – adaptive management, complexity science, systems thinking, agile strategy, human-centered design, collaborative networks, and more – but they share common principles: experiment, learn, evolve, engage. Instead of betting everything on a grand upfront plan, these approaches emphasize “learning by doing”, frequent feedback loops, and co-creation with those affected. For example, adaptive management takes a “plan – act – observe – reflect – adapt” cycle, treating any intervention as an experiment from which to learn. Systems thinking urges us to see the whole system – understanding interdependencies and feedback loops – so that solutions address root causes and avoid unintended consequences. Design thinking and other human-centered methods insist on deeply involving stakeholders and prototyping ideas quickly to test what works in practice.
All these modern approaches reject the illusion that you can figure it all out in advance. Instead, they encourage probing the system with small changes, seeing what happens, and amplifying what works (and scrapping what doesn’t). They also elevate collaboration from a mere implementation detail to a core strategy tool – recognizing that, in complexity, no single actor has all the answers, but together stakeholders can explore possibilities and adapt solutions in real time. Notably, these methods bring an agile mindset to strategy: short cycles, frequent check-ins, and continuous refinement, much like tech companies use agile sprints to iteratively develop software. In effect, strategy itself becomes a learning process, not a one-time decision.
One emerging methodology encapsulates many of these principles and has proven especially powerful for tackling wicked problems: Strategic Doing.
Strategic Doing: A New Paradigm for Wicked Problems
Strategic Doing is an innovative strategy discipline designed specifically for open, loosely-connected networks – situations where no one person can simply “call the shots” and yet collective action is needed. Developed by Ed Morrison and colleagues after years of practice, Strategic Doing provides a structured, agile process to quickly form collaborations, define strategic outcomes, and move to action even when hierarchy is absent and the end goal is initially unclear. In other words, it was built for wicked, complex environments, filling the gap where traditional strategic planning fails. When facing a challenge where “no single leader or organization can dictate the solution” – which is often the case with wicked problems – Strategic Doing offers a way forward.
At its core, Strategic Doing replaces the lengthy planning tome with a focused conversation that leads directly to action. It is highly participatory and iterative – essentially “strategy through doing” rather than endless planning. Morrison and collaborators have distilled the methodology into ten skills or rules for guiding strategic conversations, but it centers on four key questions that a group keeps cycling through:
What could we do? – Given our current assets and resources, what opportunities are available to pursue our challenge? (This opens the creative, brainstorming space and uncovers hidden assetsamong participants.)
What should we do? – Out of all the possibilities, what will we prioritize and agree to pursue together, and what would success look like? (This step focuses the group on a shared vision and collective choice, which is crucial when stakeholders have differing views, and it builds alignment on what’s most promising).
What will we do? – What small action steps will we commit to right now, and who will do what by when? (This question propels the group from talk to immediate action. The actions chosen are usually Pathfinder Projects – bite-sized initiatives achievable in a short span, e.g. 30-90 days, to build momentum).
What’s our 30/30? – When will we get back together in about 30 days to review progress and adjust? (This establishes a regular short-cycle feedback loop – often called a 30/30 meeting – to share what was learned in the last 30 days and plan the next 30 days).
By relentlessly iterating through these four questions, a Strategic Doing team creates a continuous loop of action and learning. Crucially, this approach assumes we cannot figure everything out at the start – instead it mobilizes people to try something quickly, then learn and adapt in real time. Over successive 30/30 cycles, even a very large problem gets broken down into manageable pieces, tackled through a series of small wins. Progress emerges from many small steps rather than a few big leaps. This makes it possible to take on ambitious transformations without a grand master-plan – you “learn your way” to the solution. As one summary of Strategic Doing’s philosophy puts it: “In complex situations, don’t plan and then do – plan while doing, and keep adjusting.”
Equally important, Strategic Doing is inclusive and trust-based. It treats each participant as an equal contributor in developing the strategy, deliberately leveraging their unique strengths and perspectives. This stands in stark contrast to expert-driven consulting. Everyone’s assets are put on the table, so the group can link and leverage what they have. Early Pathfinder projects are designed to produce quick, tangible wins – however small – which build confidence and buy-in among the group. The regular 30/30 check-ins create a cadence of accountability (words are consistently followed by actions), and over time people see that commitments lead to results or at least valuable lessons. All of this cultivates a culture of trust and collaboration, which is the real “operating system” for solving complex problems. In many failed change efforts, it’s not a lack of ideas that kills progress, but a lack of trust and collaborative capacity. Strategic Doing explicitly develops that capacity by teaching the group how to work together strategically in an agile way. Participants learn new habits of communication and cooperation, which continue paying dividends long after the initial project. It’s a process of “from words to action, and from action to trust,” steadily moving a group from mere talk to true collaboration.
The power of Strategic Doing is evident in real-world results. For example, consider a regional economic development challenge – say a midsized city trying to reinvent its economy for the innovation age. Traditionally, a consulting firm might be hired to produce a cluster development strategy or a thick report with recommendations. In contrast, a Strategic Doing approach would bring together a diverse group of regional players (business owners, university leaders, government agencies, entrepreneurs, etc.) and guide them through the questions above. They might quickly identify a few joint initiatives to start immediately, such as creating a new internship exchange between local companies and the university, or repurposing an underutilized city property into a co-working innovation hub. These ideas come from the stakeholders themselves, using existing resources and “hidden” assets in the community rather than waiting for big external investments. Each project team then meets monthly in 30/30 cycles to report progress, learn from what’s working (or not), and decide the next steps. After a year of this Strategic Doing process, the region doesn’t just have a plan on paper – it has several tangible initiatives underway, a tighter network of collaborators who trust each other, and a much clearer empirical sense of which strategies yield results in their context. In other words, real transformation is happening. This example mirrors actual cases (from revitalizing Flint, Michigan’s economy to post-hurricane recovery in Puerto Rico) where Strategic Doing enabled cross-sector groups to make progress on wicked problems that no single agency or leader could solve alone. Indeed, Strategic Doing has a track record in diverse contexts: economic development, public health initiatives, academic research collaborations, workforce development, and complex organizational change efforts. The common thread is that it unlocks collaborative action and innovation where traditional directives or reports had stalled out.
Why Acerola Strategies’ Approach Is Superior
Acerola Strategies was founded explicitly to help organizations navigate complexity using these new principles. After recognizing the limitations of traditional consulting, Acerola Strategies’ founder Ubaldo Córdova-Figueroa built the firm around adaptive and collaborative methods like Strategic Doing. This means our approach is not about swooping in with a pre-baked answer – it’s about facilitating a process through which the client’s own talent, plus our network of experts, co-create lasting solutions. We don’t shy away from telling clients the hard truth that “there is no simple solution to a complex problem” – instead, we offer a way to attack the issue through experimentation, learning, and sustained effort. In fact, Acerola Strategies prides itself on the honesty and maturity to say that a different strategy is required for wicked problems, even if it means challenging the quick-fix expectations of traditional consulting. This intellectual honesty is paired with proven frameworks to drive action. Our mission is to get organizations “unstuck” from analysis paralysis and moving forward on their toughest issues.
Several key elements make Acerola Strategies’ approach distinct – and superior – in addressing wicked problems:
Strategic Doing & Adaptive Action at the Core: Acerola is a certified practitioner of Strategic Doing (we are part of the Strategic Doing Institute network), and we weave its techniques into our engagements to rapidly form collaborative teams and pilot new solutions. By embracing Strategic Doing and other adaptive management tools, we help organizations break the logjam and achieve meaningful outcomes in today’s fast-changing environment. This is our main differentiator from other consultants: rather than impose a rigid plan, we guide clients through agile cycles of action and learning, which leads to better decisions and a sustainable competitive edge. We’ve seen firsthand that “guided experimentation and continuous adaptation” produce real results where top-down plans fell flat. Acerola Strategies’ approach is holistic and systemic – we consider the whole ecosystem of factors and stakeholders, optimizing opportunities and minimizing risks through iterative strategy rather than one-and-done analysis.
Collaboration and Capacity-Building: We actively involve diverse people from across the organization (and often outside it) in the strategy process. This collaborative ethos not only generates more innovative ideas (by leveraging multiple perspectives), but also ensures strong buy-in and shared ownership of solutions. People support what they help create. Acerola Strategies often serves as a neutral facilitator, bringing together silos or even public-private partners that don’t normally talk, and forging a new positive narrative and common goals among them. By doing so, we build our clients’ internal capacity to tackle complex challenges – stakeholders learn by doing the new approach, effectively gaining skills in agile leadership and teamwork as we work together. This is a long-term value we leave behind: the organization becomes more collaborative, adaptable, and empowered to continue addressing complexity even after our engagement ends. It’s consulting that doesn’t just deliver a result, but teaches you how to keep evolving.
Action-Oriented, Rapid Progress: From day one, our focus is on moving from analysis to action. We use tools like Strategic Doing to identify doable steps and launch pilot projects within weeks, not months. This bias for action means clients see momentum quickly – which is energizing and builds credibility for the effort. As Acerola Strategies puts it, we “relentlessly do the doable”, emphasizing small wins and quick implementation of ideas. This doesn’t mean we ignore strategy – it means we develop strategy through practical action, adjusting course as new information emerges. The result is a dynamic strategic action plan that is continuously refined and executed, rather than a static report. Our clients end up with real initiatives underway and measurable outcomes, not just recommendations. In complex situations, taking thoughtful action is better than endless analysis, and we embed that philosophy in every project.
Agility and Continuous Support: Wicked problems don’t follow neat schedules, so we remain flexible and responsive. Acerola Strategies offers varied options to interact with us – from short-term design workshops to longer-term accompaniment – rather than forcing a one-size-fits-all consulting package. We utilize unique engagement and pricing models that allow clients to get on board quickly and adjust the level of support as needed. This agile, transparent approach to consulting means we can pivot alongside the client as their situation evolves. We also integrate data-driven insights and measurable metrics wherever possible, so that adaptation is guided by evidence (measuring impact is one of our key tactics). Regular 30/30-style check-ins between our team and the client team create a tight feedback loop, ensuring that we learn together and continuously realign strategies on the fly. In essence, the consulting engagement itself becomes an adaptive cycle – a partnership in which plans are not static deliverables but living, breathing guides.
Deep Expertise, Humble Facilitators: Our consultants are not only trained in complexity science and advanced management practices, they also come with a humble mindset. We recognize that no outsider can simply solve a wicked problem for you – but we can equip and lead the process through which you solve it yourself. Acerola Strategies leverages a network of expert collaborators (including pioneers who developed these methodologies) to bring in specialized knowledge when needed. Yet, we always combine that expertise with methodologies adapted to the client’s context. The goal is to co-create custom solutions rather than dictate formulas. We act as guides and catalysts, not all-knowing gurus. This approach fosters trust – clients see that we’re genuinely invested in understanding their unique situation and empowering their people. It’s a stark contrast to the old consultant image of delivering a thick report and walking away. As a result, our clients become co-authors of their strategy, which dramatically increases commitment and follow-through.
In summary, Acerola Strategies offers a fundamentally different consulting experience for organizations facing wicked problems. It’s collaborative rather than prescriptive, iterative rather than linear, and action-focused rather than analysis-paralyzed. By using Strategic Doing and related adaptive frameworks, we help clients chart a path through complexity that actually gets results – not just short-term fixes, but sustainable changes built on shared learning and trust. This approach is superior to traditional consulting because it aligns with how complex problems really behave. Instead of forcing a square peg into a round hole (with linear methods ill-suited to complexity), we provide an operating system for agility and innovation. The payoff is greater resilience and capacity in our client organizations: they don’t just solve one problem and call it a day; they learn how to keep solving and adapting as new challenges arise. That is a lasting competitive advantage in a world where change is constant.
Conclusion: From Wicked Problems to Wise Action
Wicked problems are here to stay – in fact, as the pace of change accelerates and systems become more interconnected, more of the challenges businesses and communities face will be “wicked” in nature. Trying to address these 21st-century complexities with yesterday’s playbook is a recipe for frustration and failure. The evidence is clear that a new approach is not just preferable but necessary. Adaptive, network-centric methods like Strategic Doing represent that new approach: they acknowledge the reality of complexity, harness collective intelligence, and drive continuous action and adjustment. This is how you make progress on problems that once seemed unsolvable.
Acerola Strategies has embraced this ethos fully. Our success stories – from economic development initiatives to organizational transformations – show that when you combine expert guidance with inclusive collaboration and agile experimentation, remarkable things happen. Entrenched problems start to yield, new opportunities emerge from the woodwork, and people unite around solutions they had a hand in creating. In facing your organization’s wicked problems, our approach offers a fresh path to clarity and impact. We don’t promise magic bullets or overnight miracles. What we do promise is a proven process that will unlock momentum and guide you through the uncertainty, turning ambiguity into action.
In the end, tackling wicked problems is about moving from analysis to action, from siloed efforts to synchronized teamwork, and from static plans to adaptive journeys. By leveraging Strategic Doing and other cutting-edge practices, Acerola Strategies helps organizations make that leap. It’s a new kind of consulting for a new kind of challenge – one where the measure of success isn’t a nicely bound report, but real, ongoing change and the capacity to keep changing. Wicked problems may never be “solved” in a final sense, but with the right approach, we can make meaningful progress and continually shape better outcomes. For companies and communities tired of spinning their wheels on complex issues, it’s time to adopt a different strategy – one that is doable, collaborative, and adaptive. That is exactly what Acerola Strategies delivers.
