Decision making and problem solving

Diversify your product line. Stick to your knitting. Hire a professional manager. Watch fixed costs. Those are some of the suggestions that entrepreneurs...

How to overcome the limitations of our self-serving biases.

Snowden and Boone have formed a new perspective on leadership and decision making that's based on complexity science. The result is the Cynefin framework,...

To meet the challenges of a complex world, strategic planners need to understand the differences between the four elements of VUCA--volatility, uncertainty,...

Recently added to the growing assortment of quantitative tools for business decision making is the Critical Path Method—a powerful but basically simple technique for analyzing, planning, and scheduling large, complex projects. In essence, the tool provides a means of determining (2) which jobs or activities, of the many that comprise a project, are “critical” in […]

A research roundup

Here is a [recently developed] tool for analyzing the choices, risks, objectives, monetary gains, and information needs involved in complex management decisions, like plant investment.

Judgment--the ability to combine personal qualities with relevant knowledge and experience to form opinions and make decisions--is "the core of exemplary...

Five strategies to strengthen your sixth sense.

Why do people start businesses? For the money and the chance to control their own companies, certainly. But new research from Harvard Business School...

They're distinct from statisticians and machine learning engineers.

The absence of conflict is not harmony, it’s apathy.

You don’t need to pretend to have all the answers.

Start by embracing the discomfort of not knowing.

In many industries the balance of power has shifted from buyers to suppliers. Companies that have gotten into a weak position need to tackle the problem...

Disruption isn't the only approach.

The information revolution is sweeping through our economy. No company can escape its effects. Dramatic reductions in the cost of obtaining, processing, and transmitting information are changing the way we do business. Most general managers know that the revolution is under way, and few dispute its importance. As more and more of their time and […]

Corporate executives must constantly look backward, attending to the products and processes of the past, while also gazing forward, preparing for the...

Rather than try to follow a set of simple rules ("Don't lie." "Don't cheat."), leaders and managers seeking to be more ethical should focus on creating...

Should you cope or quit?