Big Issues Needs Big Tools

You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now. Harry S. Truman : American statesman (33rd US president: 1945-53)

We believe you know your business best and will in your capacity implement the necessary resources, competence, tools and methods for running a successful and efficient organization.

Still issues related to uncertainty, whether it is finance, stakeholders, production , purchase or sale, has in most cases increased due to more complex business operational environment. Excellent systems for a range of processes; consolidation, Customer relationship, accounting has kept up with increasingly complex environments, and so has your most important tool – people.

But we believe you do not possess the best available method and tool for bringing people – competence, experience, economic/financial facts, assumptions and economic/financial tools together.

You know your budgets, valuations, projections and estimates, scenario analysis all are made and presented with valuable information regarding uncertainty left out on the way. Whether this is because human experience related to risk, or analyzing, understanding and projection macro or micro risks is hard to capture, or tools not designed to capture risk is the cause. It is a fact that most complex big issues important for companies are based on insufficient information, a portion of luck, gut feeling and believes in market turns /stability/cycles or other comforting assumptions shared by peers.

Or you are restricted to giving guidelines, min/max orders, specifications and trust to third party experts that one hope are better capable of capturing risk and potential in a narrow area of expertise. Regardless of this risk spreading or differentiation works – you need the best assistance for setting your guidelines and road-map both for your internal as well as external resources.

Systems and methods (( A Skeptic’s Guide to Computer Models (Pdf, pp 25) , by John D. Sterman. This paper is reprinted from Sterman, J. D. (1991). A Skeptic’s Guide to Computer Models. In Barney, G. O. et al., Managing a Nation: The Microcomputer Software Catalog. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 209-229.)) are never better than human experience, knowledge and excellence, but if you want to look closer at a method/tool that can capture the best of your existing decision making process and bringing it to a new level. You should look closer at a stochastic complete p/L/balance simulation model for those big issues and big decisions.

If you are not familiar with stochastic simulations and probability distributions, take a look at a report for the most likely outcome (Pdf, pp 32) from the simulations – similar reports could have been made for the outcomes you would not have liked to see, giving a heads up for the sources of downside risk, OR for outcomes you would have loved you see – explaining the generators of up-side possibilities.

Endnotes