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StrategyDriven Alternative Selection Forum
Leaders face the difficult challenge of selecting those few operational activities their organization will pursue from the multitude that are proposed every planning cycle. Collectively, these activities define the company; its culture, its direction, and ultimately its success or failure.
Selecting those activities the organization engages in requires a degree of both art and science. Initiatives pursued should support the organization’s qualitatively defined values, culture, and strategy while at the same time positioning it to maximize quantifiable benefit creation at minimum cost. The resulting portfolio of activities to be performed serves as an input to both the annual and long-range business plans; charting the course for the organization’s future.
Focus of the Alternative Selection Forum
Resources in this forum are dedicated to discussing the principles and practices enabling leaders to most effectively choose those options aligned with the organization’s values and goals while offering a maximum value return to the organization and its stakeholders. The following articles, podcasts, documents, and resources cover those topics foundational to effective alternative selection.
Articles
Principles
- Forgotten Productivity Related Challenges to Process Reengineering’s Value Creation [StrategyDriven Premium Content]
- Total Cost of Ownership [StrategyDriven Premium Content]
- Total Benefit of Ownership [StrategyDriven Premium Content]
- Total Value of Ownership [StrategyDriven Premium Content]
Best Practices
- Best Practice – Common Assumptions and Variables [StrategyDriven Premium Content]
- Best Practice – Evaluate Everything [StrategyDriven Premium Content]
- Best Practice – Reality Check [StrategyDriven Premium Content]
- Best Practice – Technically Right and Absolutely Wrong [StrategyDriven Premium Content]
- Best Practice – Establishing Priorities [StrategyDriven Premium Content]
- Best Practice – Select What Not To Do And Stick With It [StrategyDriven Premium Content]
Warning Flags
- Warning Flag – Too Many Initiatives [StrategyDriven Premium Content]
- Warning Flag – An Initiative for Every Executive [StrategyDriven Premium Content]
Resources
Books
- Essentials of Strategic Management by J. David Hunger and Thomas L. Wheelen
Every decision made represents a risk to the organization; some large, others small; some immediate, others latent; some positive, others adverse. Regardless of the impact, it is desirable to have each decision bring optimal benefit to the organization. Achieving these frequent, repeatable, and positive results requires a mechanism to drive consistency in decision-making; consistency that is only achieved through established procedures on which decision-makers are trained and against which performance is evaluated and acceptable behaviors reinforced.
John Hamm is one of the top leadership experts in Silicon Valley. He was named one of the country’s Top 100 venture capitalists in 2009 by AlwaysOn and has led investments in many successful high-growth companies as a partner at several Bay Area VC firms. Hamm has also been a CEO, a board member at over thirty companies, and a CEO adviser and executive coach to senior leaders at companies such as Documentum, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, TaylorMade-adidas Golf and McAfee. John teaches leadership at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University.
When considering various operations to continue or new initiatives to pursue, there tends to be a singular focus on cost, revenue generation potential, or regulatory compliance necessity of the activity. However, many initiatives offer highly qualitative but no less beneficial contributions to the organization that should be considered beyond the simple financial return. In today’s marketplace, some of these qualitative benefits significantly contribute to sales such as the advancement of diversity and inclusion within the organization and green initiatives in both the organization’s production processes and products. Such qualitative benefits serve to enhance the organization’s reputation and in doing so attract superior talent and additional customers that would otherwise be lost to competing organizations. Thus, it becomes increasingly important to consider the total benefit of ownership of a give business operation or initiative; one that includes the ongoing quantitative and qualitative benefits these activities.
Just because the numbers look good doesn’t mean you should move forward with the initiative.
Business Programs