Scenario-Driven Planning: Learning to Manage Strategic Uncertainty (Cambridge Applied Linguistics)

This new Quorum book deals with a subject that has gradually emerged to the forefront of planning theory. Scenario-driven planning (SDP) is a new technology for management design that empowers organizations to address the various uncertainties that beset them. In recognition of the increasing turbulence of the business environment, this new technology for strategic management is attracting a great deal of attention. However, most present approaches to SDP fall short of the full power of modern management practices. Buttressed by an extensive index and reference list, this book is the most comprehensive treatment to date of the scenario approach. Written for practicing managers and consultants distrustful of quick fixes, as well as for academics and students in the field, the book starts with the present business malaise of developed economies and follows it with a presentation of the historical antecedents of the origins of SDP. It then gradually develops a modern treatment of the scenario approach, starting with its origins, proceeding with graduated case studies (simple applications first, followed by "standard" applications), and finally concluding with discussion of the theoretical issues and emerging trends that underlie the scenario approach. Drawing on their combined theoretical and consulting experiences, the authors enumerate the cognitive biases and other obstacles to the management of strategic uncertainty. They present a method that goes beyond the enumeration of judgemental "environmental" scenarios, and introduce simple as well as more sophisicated methods for computing strategic decision scenarios. Called CSM (Comprehensive Situation Mapping), this analytical approach to strategic planning allows managerial thinking to soar past the bureaucratic side of planning in order to take advantage of creative dialectics. Because of its computational and dialectic features, the CSM approach can be used by astute corporate leaders as an opportunity for promoting organizational learning.Nicholas C. Georgantzas is the author of 'Scenario-Driven Planning: Learning to Manage Strategic Uncertainty (Cambridge Applied Linguistics)', published 1995 under ISBN 9780899308258 and ISBN 0899308252.