Download or read book Management of Uncertainty written by Gudela Grote and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-09-17 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As I write, the financial systems of the world are collapsing with still no clear indication of what the consequences will be and which measures should be taken to avoid such a crisis in the future. There seems to be agreement though, that the financial instruments introduced in the past few decades entailed far too much complexity and uncertainty and that there was too little regulatory control over the use of these instruments. Management of uncertainty with the aim of achieving self-control is the core concern of this book. It was not written with a focus on financial systems, but many concepts developed in this book are applicable to this field as well. The - neric principles of reducing, maintaining or increasing uncertainties in view of the different contingencies an organization is faced with, the fundamental issue of how much control is possible and who should be in control, and the question of how much and what kind of regulation is necessary with the overall aim of finding an appropriate balance between system stability and flexibility are at the centre of heated debates on the future of finance.

Download or read book Managing Uncertainty written by Michel Syrett and published by The Economist. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Managing uncertainty has become a new business imperative. Technological discontinuities, regulatory upheavals, geopolitical shocks, abrupt shifts in consumer tastes or behavior, and many other factors have emerged or intensified in recent years and together conspire to undermine even the most carefully constructed business strategies. Managing Uncertainty: Strategies for Surviving and Thriving in Turbulent Times addresses these new challenges, assessing the sources of business turbulence, how to classify uncertainty, and the different ways in which uncertainty can be embraced to allow greater innovation and growth. Drawing on examples from around the world, the book presents the most recent ideas on what it means to manage uncertainty, from practitioners, academics, and consultants. Addresses the challenges of managing uncertainty in business Presents a step-by-step guide to managing business uncertainty Draws examples from major international companies, including Intel, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Boeing, Quinetiq, Philips, China Telecom, Ford, Apple, Shell, Glaxo SmithKline and many more Written for business leaders and managers looking for new ways to ensure that their businesses continue to thrive in a world of increasing complexity, Managing Uncertainty presents new and innovative ideas about reducing risk by understanding difficult-to-predict shifts.

Download or read book Managing Risk and Uncertainty written by Richard Friberg and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-11-13 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive framework for assessing strategies for managing risk and uncertainty, integrating theory and practice and synthesizing insights from many fields. This book offers a framework for making decisions under risk and uncertainty. Synthesizing research from economics, finance, decision theory, management, and other fields, the book provides a set of tools and a way of thinking that determines the relative merits of different strategies. It takes as its premise that we make better decisions if we use the whole toolkit of economics and related fields to inform our decision making. The text explores the distinction between risk and uncertainty and covers standard models of decision making under risk as well as more recent work on decision making under uncertainty, with a particular focus on strategic interaction. It also examines the implications of incomplete markets for managing under uncertainty. It presents four core strategies: a benchmark strategy (proceeding as if risk and uncertainty were low), a financial hedging strategy (valuable if there is much risk), an operational hedging strategy (valuable for conditions of much uncertainty), and a flexible strategy (valuable if there is much risk and/or uncertainty). The book then examines various aspects of these strategies in greater depth, building on empirical work in several different fields. Topics include price-setting, real options and Monte Carlo techniques, organizational structure, and behavioral biases. Many chapters include exercises and appendixes with additional material. The book can be used in graduate or advanced undergraduate courses in risk management, as a guide for researchers, or as a reference for management practitioners.

Download or read book Managing Project Uncertainty written by David Cleden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dealing effectively with uncertainty requires today's project manager to be familiar with a broad spectrum of strategies, encompassing both 'hard' and 'soft' methods. This theme of unified thinking (i.e. the need to selectively draw upon a wide range of strategies in any given situation) will differentiate the book from its contemporaries. By picking up where traditional risk management techniques begin to fail, it brings together leading-edge thinking from a variety of disciplines and shows how these techniques can be used to conquer uncertainty in projects. The ability to make good decisions when faced with uncertainty is the real challenge. It is a universal truth that a decision is only as good as the information it is based on. But good information is often hard to come by, and all projects are vulnerable to the unknown and the unknowable. Thus, uncertainty becomes the sworn enemy of the project manager. Wherever we try to analyse, quantify, plan and act, uncertainty lies in wait to surprise us with its ambiguity and unpredictability. It lurks in every stage of the project lifecycle: in the planning (how long will this really take?), the initiation (this isn't the situation I expected!), the execution (who could have foreseen that happening?), and even the completion of a project (where are the expected benefits?). But managing uncertainty is a lot more than just applying risk management techniques. It requires a deep appreciation of how uncertainty arises and, by recognising its different guises, the appropriate strategies can be formulated. If we can learn how to reduce uncertainty, we can make better management decisions and increase the chances of the project succeeding. This book addresses five key questions: ¢ Why is there uncertainty in projects? ¢ How do you spot the symptoms of uncertainty, preferably at an early stage? ¢ What can be done to avoid uncertainty? ¢ What strategies can be used to deal with project uncertainty? ¢ How can both the individual and the organisation learn to cope more effectively in the future? The reader is assumed to be a either a project management professional, or a senior manager looking for ways to improve project management strategy within their organisation. As such, a foundation in project management basics is assumed, although not essential. The book then builds on this by exposing new ideas and concepts, and shows how these can be harnessed to tackle uncertainty in its many guises.

Download or read book Managing in Uncertainty written by Chris Mowles and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The reality of everyday organizational life is that it is filled with uncertainty, contradictions and paradoxes. Yet leaders and managers are expected to act as though they can predict the future and bring about the impossible: that they can transform themselves and their colleagues, design different cultures, choose the values for their organization, be innovative, control conflict and have inspiring visions. Whilst managers will have had lots of experiences of being in charge, they probably realise that they are not always in control. So how might we frame a much more realistic account of what’s possible for managers to achieve? Many managers are implicitly aware of their messy reality, but they rarely spend much time reflecting on what it is that they are actually doing. Drawing on insights from the complexity sciences, process sociology and pragmatic philosophy, Chris Mowles engages directly with some principal contradictions of organizational life concerning innovation, culture change, conflict and leadership. Mowles argues that if managers proceed from the expectation that organizational life as inherently uncertain, and interactions between people are complex and often paradoxical, they start noticing different things and create possibilities for acting in different ways. Managing in Uncertainty will be of interest to practitioners, advanced students and researchers looking at management and organizational studies from a critical perspective.

Download or read book Uncertainty Management in Information Systems written by Amihai Motro and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As its title suggests, "Uncertainty Management in Information Systems" is a book about how information systems can be made to manage information permeated with uncertainty. This subject is at the intersection of two areas of knowledge: information systems is an area that concentrates on the design of practical systems that can store and retrieve information; uncertainty modeling is an area in artificial intelligence concerned with accurate representation of uncertain information and with inference and decision-making under conditions infused with uncertainty. New applications of information systems require stronger capabilities in the area of uncertainty management. Our hope is that lasting interaction between these two areas would facilitate a new generation of information systems that will be capable of servicing these applications. Although there are researchers in information systems who have addressed themselves to issues of uncertainty, as well as researchers in uncertainty modeling who have considered the pragmatic demands and constraints of information systems, to a large extent there has been only limited interaction between these two areas. As the subtitle, "From Needs to Solutions," indicates, this book presents view points of information systems experts on the needs that challenge the uncer tainty capabilities of present information systems, and it provides a forum to researchers in uncertainty modeling to describe models and systems that can address these needs.

Download or read book Uncertainty in Industrial Practice written by Etienne de Rocquigny and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Managing uncertainties in industrial systems is a daily challenge to ensure improved design, robust operation, accountable performance and responsive risk control. Authored by a leading European network of experts representing a cross section of industries, Uncertainty in Industrial Practice aims to provide a reference for the dissemination of uncertainty treatment in any type of industry. It is concerned with the quantification of uncertainties in the presence of data, model(s) and knowledge about the system, and offers a technical contribution to decision-making processes whilst acknowledging industrial constraints. The approach presented can be applied to a range of different business contexts, from research or early design through to certification or in-service processes. The authors aim to foster optimal trade-offs between literature-referenced methodologies and the simplified approaches often inevitable in practice, owing to data, time or budget limitations of technical decision-makers. Uncertainty in Industrial Practice: Features recent uncertainty case studies carried out in the nuclear, air & space, oil, mechanical and civil engineering industries set in a common methodological framework. Presents methods for organizing and treating uncertainties in a generic and prioritized perspective. Illustrates practical difficulties and solutions encountered according to the level of complexity, information available and regulatory and financial constraints. Discusses best practice in uncertainty modeling, propagation and sensitivity analysis through a variety of statistical and numerical methods. Reviews recent standards, references and available software, providing an essential resource for engineers and risk analysts in a wide variety of industries. This book provides a guide to dealing with quantitative uncertainty in engineering and modelling and is aimed at practitioners, including risk-industry regulators and academics wishing to develop industry-realistic methodologies.

Download or read book Uncertainty Advantage written by Gary S. Lynch and published by Archway Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-12 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Risk and uncertainty may sound scary, but todays best business leaders are navigating both to gain strategic advantage over competitorsand you can, too. This guide for business leaders examines risk and opportunity through the lens of some of the worlds most respected visionaries, including Howard Schultz, Andy Grove, Peter Huntsman, John Krafcik, Peter Leibinger, Doug Hepper, and many more. These visionaries looked beyond financial performance to see opportunitiesand they did so by understanding uncertainty. Then, they decisively acted to create measurable results that coincided with the future they envisioned. Find out how they did it, and learn how to: identify, define, and convert uncertainty into value; become more opportunistic when facing uncertainty; develop the skill to spot where advantages are likely to emerge; and create an environment where managers and leaders complement each other. Filled with case studies on companies such as Hyundai, Starbucks, Roche, and Intel, this guide delivers proven ways to create value and leverage uncertainty. It is the culmination of a decade of research and interaction with dozens of companies and growth leaders who prove that pursuing a market driven strategy to navigating uncertainty will gain measurable market advantage.

Download or read book Fuzzy Logic for the Management of Uncertainty written by Lotfi Asker Zadeh and published by Wiley-Interscience. This book was released on 1992-07-30 with total page 696 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fuzzy Logic for the Management of Uncertainty covers many important topics, including:" "Developments in mathematics that have paved the road for fuzzy logic;" "Deep, and of a broad perspective, exposition of virtually all approaches used in contemporary science for the representation and handling of imperfect (uncertain, imprecise, vague, ambiguous, etc.) information;" "Coverage of practically all relevant and promising directions and approaches in fuzzy logic research including LT--fuzzy logic, model theoretic approaches, intuitionistic fuzzy logic, nonmonotonic fuzzy logic, modifier fuzzy logic;" "VLSI fuzzy logic-based chips that have triggered the implementation of fuzzy logic in so many fields of science and technology;" "A broad coverage of fuzzy logic in approximate reasoning, including basic issues related to the role of fuzzy logic for approximate reasoning, analyses of various definitions of fuzzy implication that is a crucial element in fuzzy logic-based reasoning schemes,

Download or read book Proactive Risk Management written by Guy M. Merritt and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2020-10-28 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Listed as one of the 30 Best Business Books of 2002 by Executive Book Summaries. Proactive Risk Management's unique approach provides a model of risk that is scalable to any size project or program and easily deployable into any product development or project management life cycle. It offers methods for identifying drivers (causes) of risks so you can manage root causes rather than the symptoms of risks. Providing you with an appropriate quantification of the key factors of a risk allows you to prioritize those risks without introducing errors that render the numbers meaningless. This book stands apart from much of the literature on project risk management in its practical, easy-to-use, fact-based approach to managing all of the risks associated with a project. The depth of actual how-to information and techniques provided here is not available anywhere else.

Download or read book The Innovator s Method written by Nathan Furr and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever come up with an idea for a new product or service but didn’t take any action because you thought it would be too risky? Or at work, have you had what you thought could be a big idea for your company—perhaps changing the way you develop or distribute a product, provide customer service, or hire and train your employees? If you have, but you haven’t known how to take the next step, you need to understand what the authors call the innovator’s method—a set of tools emerging from lean start-up, design thinking, and agile software development that are revolutionizing how new ideas are created, refined, and brought to market. To date these tools have helped entrepreneurs, designers, and software developers manage uncertainty—through cheap and rapid experiments that systematically lower failure rates and risk. But many managers and leaders struggle to apply these powerful tools within their organizations, as they often run counter to traditional managerial thinking and practice. Authors Nathan Furr and Jeff Dyer wrote this book to address that very problem. Following the breakout success of The Innovator’s DNA—which Dyer wrote with Hal Gregersen and bestselling author Clay Christensen to provide a framework for generating ideas—this book shows how to make those ideas actually happen, to commercialize them for success. Based on their research inside corporations and successful start-ups, Furr and Dyer developed the innovator’s method, an end-to-end process for creating, refining, and bringing ideas to market. They show when and how to apply the tools of their method, how to adapt them to your business, and how to answer commonly asked questions about the method itself, including: How do we know if this idea is worth pursuing? Have we found the right solution? What is the best business model for this new offering? This book focuses on the “how”—how to test, how to validate, and how to commercialize ideas with the lean, design, and agile techniques successful start-ups use. Whether you’re launching a start-up, leading an established one, or simply working to get a new product off the ground in an existing company, this book is for you.

Download or read book Profiting From Uncertainty written by Paul Schoemaker and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-25 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What manager is not anxious about the future? We live in a white-knuckled age of rapid technological change and global instability. But uncertainty is not the enemy, says management expert Paul J. H. Schoemaker. It is where the greatest opportunities are. To unlock these opportunities, however, requires a very different approach to strategy and implementation. In this pioneering book, Dr. Schoemaker presents a systematic approach that combines concepts such as scenario planning, options thinking, and dynamic monitoring to create novel strategies for profiting from ambiguity. Building on his experience with more than one hundred consulting projects in fields ranging from health care to manufacturing, from utilities to financial services, Schoemaker shows how major corporations throughout the world have used his pathbreaking methodology to prepare for an uncertain future and profit from it. In this first comprehensive approach to the subject, Schoemaker shows the reader (1) how to develop and analyze multiple industry scenarios, (2) craft nimble strategies with just the right amount of flexibility, (3) implement them using an options approach, and (4) make real-time adjustments through dynamic monitoring. As a leading academic thinker and practitioner, the author draws on the frontiers of decision science, organization theory, strategy, and cognitive psychology to integrate the most practical contributions these various fields have made to navigating uncertainty. More than any other capability, skill in seizing initiatives in shifting, unpredictable circumstances is the key to success. Profiting from Uncertainty provides a road map to do just that. This book was first published in 2002, well ahead of the mega turmoil that befell the world in 2008 and beyond. The methods and tools described here have been used by many companies and are even more relevant today than when originally published. You can’t do without them.

Download or read book Business Strategy written by J.-C. Spender and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emphasising that firms face uncertainties and unknowns, this book argues that the core of strategic thinking and processes rests on the organization and its leaders developing newly imagined solutions to the opportunities that these uncertainties open up. It presents new approaches for managers, consultants, strategy teachers and students.

Download or read book Management Control and Uncertainty written by M. Association and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-11-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Management Control and Uncertainty recognizes that all control takes place under conditions of uncertainty: it does now, and it always has done. In this edited collection, the contributing authors examine different aspects of management control systems in the modern world whilst paying more explicit attention to the ubiquitous nature of uncertainty

Download or read book Uncertainty written by Millett Granger Morgan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A risk analysis textbook which is intended as a basic text for students as well as a reference for practitioners and researchers. It provides a basis for policy analysis and draws upon a variety of case studies.

Download or read book Risk Based Thinking written by Tony Muschara and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-13 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Society at large tends to misunderstand what safety is all about. It is not just the absence of harm. When nothing bad happens over a period of time, how do you know you are safe? In reality, safety is what you and your people do moment by moment, day by day to protect assets from harm and to control the hazards inherent in your operations. This is the purpose of risk-based thinking, the key element of the six building blocks of Human and Organizational Performance (H&OP). Generally, H&OP provides a risk-based approach to managing human performance in operations. But, specifically, risk-based thinking enables foresight and flexibility—even when surprised—to do what is necessary to protect assets from harm but also achieve mission success despite ongoing stresses or shocks to the operation. Although you cannot prepare for every adverse scenario, you can be ready for almost anything. When risk-based thinking is integrated into the DNA of an organization’s way of doing business, people will be ready for most unexpected situations. Eventually, safety becomes a core value, not a priority to be negotiated with others depending on circumstances. This book provides a coherent perspective on what executives and line managers within operational environments need to focus on to efficiently and effectively control, learn, and adapt.

Download or read book Solving for Project Risk Management Understanding the Critical Role of Uncertainty in Project Management written by Christian B. Smart and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2020-11-23 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Risk is real—but you can manage it with this hard-hitting guide to reducing risk on any project, in any industry All projects, large and small, are subject to various risks. But the failure to manage inherent risk with diligence and know-how can lead to devastating consequences for an organization. In this comprehensive hands-on guide, a renowned expert in the field provides everything organizations need to conduct project risk management the right way. Why do so many projects come in over schedule and over budget? How do projected expenditures and schedules line up with reality? How can you accurately assess risk to mitigate financial disaster? Through a methodical, statistics-based approach, Christian B. Smart reveals: The enduring problem of cost and schedule growth How rigorous project risk management can reduce the impact of uncertainty The systematic tendency to underestimate risk—and how to avoid it Ways to accurately assess confidence levels in project risk management The need for proper risk management at the portfolio level The author lays out common problems and explains how to effectively solve them. And while he employs a wealth of illustrative charts, graphs, and statistics, he presents the material in an accessible style, and peppers the text with powerful personal anecdotes. Ideal for project managers, business analysts, and senior decision makers in both the public and private sectors, Solving for Project Risk Management offers everything you need to ensure your projects run smoothly, on budget, and deliver the expected outcomes.