REPLY Future Development Directions (SD6259)

[System Dynamics Mailing List]

Posted by  "Kim Warren" <Kim at strategydynamics.com>

I can recommend a few managerial articles about the need for rigour in
strategy ..
 
Kevin P. Coyne and Somu Subramaniam, "Bringing discipline to strategy,"
The McKinsey Quarterly, Volume 4 (1996), 14-25.

Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor. "Why Hard-Nosed Executive Should
Care About Management Theory", Harvard Business Review, Volume 81, No.9,
(September 2003), 66-75.

Thomas H Davenport, "Competing on Analytics'" Harvard Business Review,
Volume 84, No.1, (January 2006), 98-107. [Includes some cases of
organisations that actually do this, e.g. Capital-One in credit cards
and the Boston Red-Sox].

In short, there does seem to be a sentiment to move away from gut-based
decision-making and do some fact-finding and working-out of what might
be best .. I would hope that SD is well placed to help.
I also like a quote from Jeff Bezos - ex Wall St star-analyst and
founder of Amazon .. "When it comes to the important decisions, data
beats intuition every time". He is also known to stop management
meetings when they start debating options, saying 'until we have the
facts and analysed them there is no point discussing this'.

Kim
Posted by  "Kim Warren" <Kim at strategydynamics.com>
posting date  Mon, 12 Feb 2007 12:52:44 -0000