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Book Details
Abstract
Practical Strategy offers a coherent guide to many of the complex and diverse strategic decisions that many managers face today. The books practical outlook offers a unique approach to a broad range of strategic situations, in which it explores each one through practical questioning and techniques. This text demonstrates how strategic decisions are met on logic, rather than high level mathematics, by using real life examples and case studies to engage the student.
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cover | Cover | ||
| Practical Strategy | i | ||
| Contents | vii | ||
| List of figures | xv | ||
| List of tables | xvii | ||
| Preface | xix | ||
| Publisher’s acknowledgements | xxiv | ||
| The keys to the practical strategy toolbox | 1 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 1 | ||
| Introduction | 1 | ||
| Tactical problems vs. strategic questions | 2 | ||
| Simplification and modelling | 4 | ||
| A process for practical strategy | 6 | ||
| Strategic problems and questions | 10 | ||
| Asking strategic questions | 12 | ||
| Changing the strategic question | 14 | ||
| Case study: Herrington-Jones and Co 2010 | 15 | ||
| Chapter summary | 16 | ||
| Unravelling complexity | 18 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 18 | ||
| Introduction | 18 | ||
| Sorting out ideas | 19 | ||
| Impact wheels – making sense of trends and consequences | 20 | ||
| Problems and reasons: the ‘why’ diagram | 28 | ||
| Causation and feedback | 28 | ||
| Chapter summary | 45 | ||
| References | 46 | ||
| Thinking about futures | 47 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 47 | ||
| Introduction | 47 | ||
| Is the future a foreign land? | 48 | ||
| Futures methodologies | 49 | ||
| Projection and modelling | 49 | ||
| Narrative studies | 51 | ||
| The Delphi method | 53 | ||
| Scenarios as stories of the future | 57 | ||
| ‘Drivers’ of change | 58 | ||
| Intuitive logic scenarios | 60 | ||
| Scenario cases | 62 | ||
| Combinatorial scenarios | 62 | ||
| Morphological scenarios – field anomaly relaxation (FAR) | 63 | ||
| Normative scenarios | 74 | ||
| The art of the long view | 75 | ||
| Further reading | 76 | ||
| Case study: Simplified FAR at Herrington-Jones and Co | 76 | ||
| Chapter summary | 82 | ||
| References | 83 | ||
| Identifying strategic actions | 85 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 85 | ||
| Introduction | 85 | ||
| Formulating and evaluating strategies | 86 | ||
| A simple matrix technique | 86 | ||
| The Idon Scenario Matrix | 87 | ||
| The SWOT method and its limitations | 88 | ||
| TOWS and strategies | 89 | ||
| TOWS and strategies: a worked example | 90 | ||
| Case study: Promoting e-commerce | 93 | ||
| Case study: TOWS and strategies at Herrington-Jones and Co | 100 | ||
| Chapter summary | 107 | ||
| References | 108 | ||
| Finding viable organisations | 109 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 109 | ||
| Introduction | 109 | ||
| The principle of the viable firm matrix | 110 | ||
| An illustration of the VFM | 110 | ||
| Developing a VFM | 114 | ||
| Evaluating strategic options with the VFM | 115 | ||
| Case study: Herrington-Jones’s viable firm matrix | 119 | ||
| Chapter summary | 122 | ||
| Reference | 124 | ||
| Evaluating strategic moves | 125 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 125 | ||
| Introduction to congruence and resource analysis | 125 | ||
| An example of congruence analysis | 126 | ||
| The congruence analysis technique | 128 | ||
| Congruence analysis in practice | 131 | ||
| Resource analysis | 132 | ||
| Case study: Application to Herrington-Jones and Co | 140 | ||
| Chapter summary | 142 | ||
| Obstacles, remedies, plans and decisions | 143 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 143 | ||
| Introduction | 143 | ||
| The concept of force field analysis | 144 | ||
| The purposes of force field analysis | 146 | ||
| The technique of force field analysis | 147 | ||
| The outcome of force field analysis | 149 | ||
| Producing a corporate plan | 149 | ||
| The decision stage | 150 | ||
| Case study: Herrington-Jones’s force field analysis | 151 | ||
| Chapter summary | 154 | ||
| Sorting out the practical strategy toolbox | 155 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 155 | ||
| Introduction | 155 | ||
| The ACTIFELD methodology | 156 | ||
| An alternative view of the methodology | 158 | ||
| A checklist for ACTIFELD | 160 | ||
| Judgement about the tools for practical strategy | 162 | ||
| A small sample of applications | 163 | ||
| Topics for you to try | 163 | ||
| Success factors in practical strategy | 165 | ||
| Broadening the practical strategy toolkit | 168 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 168 | ||
| Introduction – why we need more tools | 168 | ||
| The proliferation of tools | 169 | ||
| Theme One – innovation | 170 | ||
| Theme Two – the art of judgement | 170 | ||
| Theme Three – making plans under pressure | 170 | ||
| Theme Four – wish lists | 171 | ||
| Chapter summary | 172 | ||
| Stimulating innovation: possibilities, relevance and impacts | 173 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 173 | ||
| Introduction | 173 | ||
| Introduction to morphological methods | 174 | ||
| The method of systematic field coverage | 176 | ||
| The method of the morphological box | 177 | ||
| Morphological analysis, field anomaly relaxation and the viable firm matrix | 181 | ||
| Morphological distance and technological routes | 181 | ||
| The method of negation and construction | 184 | ||
| The morphological methods and technology forecasting | 185 | ||
| Summary on the morphological methods | 187 | ||
| Relevance trees | 188 | ||
| The impacts of technology | 190 | ||
| Assessing innovations | 191 | ||
| Chapter summary | 193 | ||
| References | 194 | ||
| The art of judgement: concepts and methods | 195 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 195 | ||
| Introduction | 195 | ||
| Vickers and his book | 197 | ||
| The skills of appreciation | 197 | ||
| Judgements about issues, or, is history bunk? | 199 | ||
| Neustadt and May’s book | 200 | ||
| The mini-methods | 201 | ||
| Summary on the mini-methods | 208 | ||
| Chapter summary | 208 | ||
| References | 209 | ||
| On the back of an envelope: tools for rapid analysis | 210 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 210 | ||
| Introduction | 210 | ||
| The military appreciation | 212 | ||
| The principles of war | 216 | ||
| The principles of ‘war’ in civilian problems | 218 | ||
| Fishbone diagrams | 220 | ||
| Chapter summary | 222 | ||
| Dealing with wish lists | 223 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 223 | ||
| Introduction | 223 | ||
| Managing wish lists | 224 | ||
| The structure of commitment management | 225 | ||
| Methodologies for commitment management | 227 | ||
| Threat profile matrices | 228 | ||
| The mission-orientated analysis hierarchy – a structure for wish list problems | 233 | ||
| A hierarchy for Tethys | 236 | ||
| Building MOA hierarchies | 240 | ||
| Mission-orientated analysis (MOA) | 244 | ||
| Strategic performance and threat assessment | 252 | ||
| MOA and improvement programmes | 252 | ||
| MOA for a large hospital | 255 | ||
| Conceptual planning frameworks | 257 | ||
| Business applications of MOA | 260 | ||
| Case study: MOA and Herrington-Jones and Co | 261 | ||
| Chapter summary | 262 | ||
| References | 263 | ||
| Two case studies in practical strategy | 264 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 264 | ||
| Introduction | 264 | ||
| Case study: The Murray/Darling River Basin | 265 | ||
| Case study: Littleworth and Thrupp (L&T) – Solicitors | 280 | ||
| Chapter summary | 289 | ||
| Reference | 290 | ||
| Practical strategy in action | 291 | ||
| What this chapter is about | 291 | ||
| Introduction | 291 | ||
| Review of the ‘standard’ toolbox | 292 | ||
| The specialised tools for practical strategy | 293 | ||
| Managing real problems | 294 | ||
| Making syndicates effective | 297 | ||
| Presenting results and conclusions | 298 | ||
| Comparative approaches to practical strategy | 298 | ||
| Some further reading | 300 | ||
| Teaching practical strategy | 301 | ||
| Finale | 301 | ||
| Appendix: Software for practical strategy | 302 | ||
| Index | 303 |