Product Description

Scenario planning allows companies to move away from linear thinking and better understand external change. Eight years (and 30,000 copies) after publication Scenarios is still acknowledged as the definitive work in the field. Now, Kees van der Heijden brings his bestseller up to date, following up on his original case studies and adding significant new material. The Second Edition changes focus slightly by providing more in-depth analysis and application of the concept of the 'strategic conversation'. While maintaining the underlying rigour of the first edition, van der Heijden revisits the text to make it far more practical and accessible, and in doing so gives you the tools you need to set out and negotiate a successful future course for your organization in the face of significant uncertainty.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #121467 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 380 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780470023686
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
“…all important subjects for the modern manager are covered in 5 parts…” (Business Books – web)

From the Publisher
This book shows how to use scenarios--a powerful new approach to strategic planning--to pilot your company profitably through unknown territory. First developed at Royal Dutch/Shell, scenario planning is a technique that enables you to imagine--and prepare for--discontinuous change. When initially developed, scenario planning helped companies understand external change--change in markets, the competitive arena, technology, demographics and so on. In this book, the author takes the art of senario planning one giant step further. After tackling external forces, he shows you how to apply the logic of scenario planning to internal forces. When applied internally as well as externally, scenarios become the driving force for learning as well as planning.

From the Inside Flap
The Second Edition features brand new material throughout, and places increased emphasis on the essential link between organizational success and unique insights and original ideas. In addition, the entire text has been rewritten to bring it up-to-date and make it more practical whilst retaining the underlying rigour. A new website offers support materials for tutors.

Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation, Second Edition will help you:

• Break out of the organization’s ‘thinking box’ and take a wider perspective
• Understand the unique drivers of an organization’s success by articulating its central business idea
• Develop scenarios as alternative ways of making sense of what is happening in the business environment, and use them to become more secure with the future
• Gain new understanding of the organization in its ‘playing field’, using narrative and storylines to articulate the overall systemic framework and make it visible
• Do all of this as an organizational process, to impact thinking of the organization as a whole and to prepare it for action.

Customer Reviews

Strategic Processes MasterGuide
Aimed at business strategists or consultants, this book provides many deep, usable tools, and approaches assisting the development of more robust projects and organizations across a range of futures.

The well referenced attractive chapters span:

++ The context- history in Shell, and three paradigms (rationalist/ evolutionist, and processualist).

++ The principles of scenario planning- the business idea, uncertainty, scenarios, and scenarios planning in organizations.

++ The practice of scenario planning- practitioner's art, articulating the business idea, competitive positioning, scenario development, and option planning.

++ Institutionalizing scenario planning- the management of change, planning processes, and guiding the strategic conversation.

Strengths include: the credibility and rigor of content (the author has 35 years experience in this field!); the attractive style and presentation; the sets of checklist & guidance for those embarking on scenario planning exercises; and extremely relevant tools for senior managers (and whole organizations) to avoid "analysis-paralysis" number-crunching or Las Vegas gambling on guesswork and charisma. The main weakness (to this reviewer) was a need for more case studies, and perhaps more occasional humor/lightheartedness.

Overall, a great text which goes very well with the high quality Gill Ringland's "Scenario Planning- Managing for the Future" (Wiley, 1998, ISBN 047197790X).

A Life-Time's Experience in Scenarios and Corporate Strategy
What makes this book such high-value reading is not just the quality of the author's argument; it is the way in which he lets us participate in his wealth of experience gained over many years of conducting practical scenario work. Readers with a professional background in corporate strategic planning will profit from this thoughtful exposition of accrued processual knowledge. Newcomers are offered a unique opportunity to make a direct shortcut to the results of a life-time's professional learning in this highly complex field of practice. This is not to say, of course, it could replace personal experience to be made by each individual alone; however, Kees van der Heijden offers a clearly structured guide to the Whys and Hows of organizational learning based on the scenario approach to planning. (read more about this great book at http://www.unisg.ch/~sgzz/links/stp/futres/bookrev.htm)

Packed with Knowledge!
Many business books provide just enough information to whet executives' appetites for more advice accompanied by high consulting fees. Author Kees van der Heijden has written an exception. His comprehensive volume puts scenario building in historical context, explains its relationship to forecasting and tells you how to introduce scenario planning to your organization. Once you understand your corporate identity and your fundamental "Business Idea," he says, you can establish and enact informative scenarios that will prepare your company for several different versions of what lies ahead. In that way, scenario planning generates better decision making. We strongly recommend this book to top managers, strategists and planners, especially those who sense they're making decisions on the fly without having a structure for thinking deeply about future implications.