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1 " Effective strategy planners spread strategy reviews throughout the year rather than squeeze them into a two- or three-month window. This allows senior executives to focus on one issue at a time until they reach a decision or set of decisions. "
― Harvard Business School Press , HBR's 10 Must Reads on Making Smart Decisions
2 " strategic-issue reviews are organized around “facts, alternatives, and choices. "
3 " In 2002, after acquiring and integrating gum-maker Adams—a move that significantly expanded Cadbury’s product and geographic reach—the "
4 " The company’s approach illustrates a point I stress repeatedly to my clients: Structure divides; social operating mechanisms integrate. I hasten to add that structure is essential. If an organization didn’t divide tasks, functions, and responsibilities, it would never get anything done. But social operating mechanisms are required to direct the various activities contained within a structure toward an objective. "
5 " By embracing decision-focused planning, companies will almost certainly find that the quantity and quality of their decisions will improve. "
6 " The trick in decision making is to avoid becoming either mindlessly global or hopelessly local. If "
7 " what should he do to make strategic planning drive more, better, and faster decisions? Like "
8 " More than anything else, this disconnect—between the way planning works and the way decision making happens—explains the frustration, if not outright antipathy, most executives feel toward strategic planning. "
9 " The process contains serious flaws. First, it’s conducted annually, so it doesn’t help executives respond swiftly to threats and opportunities (a new competitor, a possible acquisition) that crop up throughout the year. Second, "
10 " they’ve also changed the nature of top management’s discussions about strategy—from “review and approve” to “debate and decide, "
11 " use the strategy development process to drive decision making. "
12 " Focus on Companywide Issues. During strategy discussions, focus on issues spanning multiple business units. Example: "
13 " very few companies (less than 10%, according to our survey) have any sort of rigorous or disciplined process for responding to changes in the external environment. "
14 " Acquisition opportunities tend to emerge spontaneously, the result of changes in management at a target company, the actions of a competitor, or some other unpredictable event. "
15 " Chevron, for example, has a decision-analysis group whose members facilitate decision-framing workshops; coordinate data gathering for analysis; build and refine economic and analytical models; help project managers and decision makers interpret analyses; point out when additional information and analysis would improve a decision; conduct an assessment of decision quality; and coach decision makers. "
16 " The use of “war games” is a powerful antidote to the lack of thinking about competitors’ reactions to proposed moves. 11. "
17 " The real challenge for executives who want to implement decision quality control is not time or cost. It is the need to build awareness that even highly experienced, superbly competent, and well-intentioned managers are fallible. Organizations need to realize that a disciplined decision-making process, not individual genius, is the key to a sound strategy. And they will have to create a culture of open debate in which such processes can flourish. Originally "
18 " The art of management is the art of making meaningful generalizations out of inadequate facts. "
19 " Business-unit managers should remain involved in corporate-level strategy planning that affects their units. But a focus on issues rather than business units better aligns strategy development with decision making and investment. Consider "
20 " Uhlaner put in place a Growth and Performance Planning Process that starts with agreement by Ballmer’s leadership team on a set of strategic themes—major issues like PC market growth, the entertainment market, and security—that cross business-unit boundaries. "
