The McKinsey Quarterly article “Dynamic management: Better decisions in uncertain times” discusses general implementation approaches for helping individuals occupying pivotal roles to work collaboratively.
- Learning by doing – Use scenario planning, decision trees, and stage gating to think differently about the future.
- Workshop-based adult-learning techniques – Manage ambiguity and complexity by developing case studies to surface and debate alternative courses of actions.
- Performance measurement – Peer-assessment techniques to measure how effectively executives are contributing to the success of others.
- Surfacing critical issues early
- Performing the necessary staff work – Use proven problem-solving approaches like Decision Trees, Probabilistic modeling, stage-gate investing, and scenario planning.
- Changing how decisions are made – Redesign decision making processes to enable rapid surfacing and formal designation of issues considered critical.
- Rethinking corporate budgeting processes – Adapt the budgeting process to make it more flexible – allow for range of outcomes, use rolling budgets to keep the plans current. Other alternatives include semiannual budgeting and financial-planning cycle; undertake scenario-based financial-contingency planning.
