The Art of Problem-Solving - Design and Evaluation of a Training Program in Solving Complex Planning Problems

Spatial planners (regional planners, urban planners, architects, etc.) are often confronted with complex, interdisciplinary problems characterized by contradictory interests that call for a highly sophisticated plan of action. With this in mind, the University of Stuttgart has developed a new curriculum to provide planners with a systematic, theoretically grounded, and transdisciplinary education in solving complex problems. The curriculum is built on an explicitly articulated educational concept, thereby distinguishing it from the widespread approach of learning by doing. Given that such a curriculum requires an adequate planning model, it draws on a systemic planning theory of the "Third Generation", which goes beyond older approaches like "technical rationality" (of the "First Generation") and "communicative rationality" (of the "Second Generation"). Moreover, subjected to systematic experimental evaluation, the curriculum was shown to result in significantly improved solutions and planning processes to particular planning problems by participants who had been given explicit methods and models to guide their thinking. For example, students exposed to the curriculum developed solutions that were not only judged by experts to be more effective but that were also distinguished by more rigorous argumentation in addition to drawing on a broader and more diversified spectrum of possible solutions.

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