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March 19, 2007
Dealing with Dilemmas Part IV
In Dealing with Dilemmas Part I, Dealing with Dilemmas Part II, Dealing with Dilemmas Part III and Kobayashi Maru, I did discuss -- well obviously -- how managers should deal with dilemmas.
A dilemma is a difficult choice of some sort. Managers typically dont like dilemmas and feel trapped. In many cases this is not necessary, many dilemmas turn out to be false dilemmas. We do not have to EITHER outsource OR not, centralize OR decentralize, control costs OR fuel for growth. In many cases we can do both at the same time. Sometimes because there is a synthesis possible between the two, as I did describe on on our BI Website. But in many more cases the dilemma turns out to be false because no one said it had to be 100% either/or. You can outsource a little bit, but not everything. You can standardize, but not on one single platform, etc you get my drift. IN general, not all budget you have (in terms of time and money) has to be spent on one choice, you can invest in a portfolio of choices. Each of the components in the portfolio addresses a part of the desired result, without hitting the dominants disadvantage of the either/or option. In other words, you decompose both sides of the dilemma into smaller parts, and recompose them not as a single either/or choice, but as a set of smaller and/and choices, avoiding the false dilemma altogether.
There is actually quite some economic background in portfolio theory. Check this link.
Best regards, frank
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Posted by Frank Buytenkijk at 5:58 AM | Comments (0)
Sunshine. Beach. Safari. And A Bit Of Work.
Next Monday its VACATION TIME. No blogs for the next 3 weeks, except the one I will post in a second, the last one on CIO Dilemmas (at least for the foreseeable future, I may revisit the topic). I will enjoy the beautiful countryside of South Africa, like many times before. As always, with a little bit of work, also teaching my Advanced Performance Management on Organizational Behavior and Strategic Alignment training at GIBS University in Johannesburg.
Talk to you later!
frank
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Posted by Frank Buytenkijk at 5:40 AM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2007
THE FUTURE IS NOW
Im sorry I havent been able to blog for the last week, as you can imagine things have been a bit hectic. Oracle is acquiring Hyperion. I would like to take this opportunity to point you to a few web pages:
I would also like to add one personal comment: when I was in school, I always was the smartest kid in the class, and as a result always chosen last in sports. Now, being part of Hyperion, I am pleased to see we are chosen first.
frank
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Posted by Frank Buytenkijk at 5:06 PM | Comments (0)
