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News and Insights

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UNCERTAINTY DECONSTRUCTED; WE SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING

Bruce Garvey is joined by Dowshan Humzah and Prof Michael Mainelli at the FS Club on Monday 3rd October 2022 to discuss Uncertainty Deconstructed: We Should Have Seen It Coming- click HERE to see the video

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UNCERTAINTY DECONSTRUCTED; WE SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING

Bruce Garvey discuss Uncertainty Deconstructed: We Should Have Seen It Coming with the Centre for Management Consulting Excellence on teh 20th October 2022- click HERE to see the video

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UNCERTAINTY DECONSTRUCTED

This book argues that uncertainty is not really uncertainty at all but just demonstrates a lack of vision and willingness to think about the unthinkable—good and bad. The task of accepting that uncertainty is about exploring the possible, rather than the impossible has to be taken on board by strategists, policy developers, and political leaders, if we are to meet the challenges that an ever-changing world is throwing at us. The term “unknown–unknowns” is ubiquitous, albeit the vast majority of future uncertain events do not fall into this category. However, it has been used to absolve decision makers from criticism post event, whereas poor foresight is the prime culprit and that most future uncertainties are “known-unknowns” or “inevitable surprises”. This re-positioning of uncertainties can help mitigate the impact of such risks through better foresight aware contingency planning. The enemy is not uncertainty itself but our lack of imagination when trying to visualise the future—we need to transform our behaviour. To better understand uncertainty, we have to deconstruct it and get to grips with its component parts. Three main questions are posed and practical approaches presented: What are the main structural components that make up the conditions under which uncertainty operates? What scenario lenses can be used when exploring uncertainty? What behavioural factors do we need to consider when analysing the human responses to uncertainty? Practitioners, having to deal with making better decisions under uncertainty, will find the book a useful guide. - available NOW.

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KNOWN TALK SERIES

Back in April at the London Book Fair, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation, based in Dubai in conjunction with the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) held a number of live events in their “Know Talks” series. I was fortunately asked to be one of the speakers where Bruce Garvey was invited to speak about my forthcoming book “Uncertainty Deconstructed”.

The moderated presentation lasts around 50 minutes with around 30 minutes of Bruce presenting the main concepts followed by a Q&A session of around 20 minutes. Some of technical issues relating to the slides arose but it was a live event. - click HERE to see the video

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DETECTING WEAK SIGNALS, OUTLIERS AND FUZZY FUTURES

“We didn’t see it coming” is a term often used by decision makers, and when supported by the justification that “it” was a “Black Swan” event, is deployed to rationalize failure to act soon enough in response to earlier warning signals. Along with behavioural traits such as amnesia, denial, blind spots and hubris, the inability to spot such signals has also been put down to limited awareness and application of methods which can help identify “weak signals” and outliers. Operating not just as discrete, isolated phenomena, but in the form of symbiotic clustering – a variety of asymmetric signals of different strengths can merge to reveal a major change impactor. Such phenomena can be in the form of future (or more specifically “what if”) scenarios and/or new technologies, which if not identified in time, can lead decision makers to fail to respond soon enough to disruptive outcomes. This paper offers an innovative approach with application of two but oft neglected methods which can help isolate signals having the potential to trigger future discontinuities, disruptive phenomena and events, and
thus majorly improve “weak signal” identification – and support decision making under uncertainty.”- click
HERE to download a copy

COMING SOON - BREAKING DOWN THE "FUZZY FRONT END" OF R&D

With pharmaceutical research undergoing somewhat of a renaissance there has never been so much pressure on the “fuzzy front end” of pharmaceutical innovation.  Much of this growth has been driven by smaller organisations leveraging new and innovative technologies generating more and more complex data.  Today pharmaceutical executives have to make investment decision under this cloud of uncertainty, risk and complexity and traditional tools and portfolio management processes are simply not up to the task.

Healthcare affordability and the value of pharmaceutical products is a ‘wicked problem’ where facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent. Mounting economic pressures and biotechnology advances have made market access and pricing the focus of a socio-political debate. Drug pricing regularly makes headlines, with patient advocacy organisations, medical communities and political leaders weighing into the discussions. Both government and private payers around the world have tightened coverage requirements as drug budgets cannot measure up to the increasing healthcare needs of an aging population. The mandate is that life sciences firms provide compelling evidence of both the health benefit (the value) and the financial impact (the affordability) of treatments and therapies. The question is how do you select a therapeutic modality for development on its promise to pay in ever changing and a cost-constrained world? - click HERE to download a copy

In the immediate wake of the Brexit referendum result, prominent Brexiteers postulated that the process to disengage from the EU would be a relatively simple matter. Yet it is increasingly apparent to our negotiators that the process is highly complex and fraught and that the earlier, hoped for, timetable has been delayed to the extent that a situation akin to an “impasse” has been reached with few signs that the log-jam will be unblocked soon. - click HERE to download a copy

Recent situations in the UK and the wider world, such as Brexit, the Trump Presidency, the NHS hacking and security issues emanating from the recent UK terrorist events are evidence of forecast-driven decision making being challenged by complexity and uncertainty combined with limited foresight. Indeed, organisations, their senior management and policy makers, have had to adjust their thinking that not everything can be determined by allocating a probability based estimate. - click HERE to download a copy

Online Resources

Click here to find the schedules referred to as Appendices 3 to 7 linked to Chapter 7 in our new publication "UNCERTAINTY  DECONSTRUCTED –TRANSFORMING TRADITIONAL PERCEPTIONS - A Guidebook for Decision Support Practitioners” to be published by Springer in August 2022.

Multimedia

Watch our founder, Dr Bruce Garvey, discuss how Fibonacci works

 

Introduction to MA

 

Fibonacci Software

 

Fibonacci in Action

 

Using MA for PESTLE analysis

 

Weak Signals

 

Options for a Post Pandemic Uncertain World

 

Alternative Post Pandemic Scenarios

 

Academic Publications

Strategy Foresight founders are thought leaders in decision analytics.  You can find some of our latest academic publications at: 

New directions in computational, combinational and structural creativity - click HERE

Using morphological analysis to tackle uncertainty at the design phase for a safety critical application - click HERE

 

Exploring new approaches to improve hand hygiene monitoring in healthcare - click HERE

SWOT analysis using general morphological analysis  - click HERE

Design as an Unstructured Problem: New Methods to Help Reduce Uncertainty—A Practitioner Perspective- click HERE

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