RSM EMBA 2005 Class Notes

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Class 1

Anthology: How --- Epistemology: What
Process: How / The way --- Content: What
In a lot of discussions in business process and content are confused.

Important in scenario thinking is the way a manager thinks, not the report.
Equally important is content.

KNOW YOUR STUFF!!

Drivers of scenario thinking:

  • What are we missing?
  • What don’t we know?

Workshops are needed to decide for what time period you make scenarios (1 or 2 workshops)

Complex things require complex presentation.

Story telling works, bullets don’t!

Best scenarios have high surprise and high likelihood.

Everything you do is based on assumptions of the future.

Only 2-3% of time of managers is spend on thinking about the future.

Focussing for a long time give fresh insights.

Value of scenarios is not in business as usual, because managers are capable of doing that, but in extraordinary information.

Class 2

Difference is explained between:

  • Dilemma – A choice between two
  • Scenario – what do we want to understand

Strategy is about problems you don’t know about
Operations is solving problems of today

Strategy is not about what you do, but about what you NOT want to do.

Story about alchemy has as learning points:

  • Divide / reductionism throws away valuable information
  • Systems are worth saving

Politics, Economics, Social and Technology are interconnected.

Characteristics of systems and scenarios:

  • A system is more defined by the nature of interrelationships than by the objects itself.
  • Systems and scenarios provide an ability to test and to play.
  • Scenario collects a set of assumptions.


Tips for system development:

  • Boundaries in systems are arbitrary. It is a choice.
  • When making scenarios you choose your boundaries! Don’t choose the boundaries too strict.
  • Granularity in a system is a choice. It is better to model in richness.
  • Nodes in a system which have only incoming, or only outgoing arrows should be split up.
  • Software – Stella and iThink can help in modelling and showing system dynamics.
  • Describe every link in a system (in natural language), and read as a sentence.

Ways to change the behaviour of a system:

  • Change rules of the system
  • Intensify the system until it collapse
  • Change a high leverage point
  • Change everywhere at once

A system for the war against drugs of Ronald Reagan was developed in the class. (I do not have the systems diagram) Interventions which could help to solve this problem are:

  • Legalize and tax
  • Buy-out farmers
  • Substitutes
  • hapiness
  • Kill users
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