Stanford Strategic Decision and Risk Management

On-Demand Webinars

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November 24th, 2009

Prioritizing R&D at Baxter Healthcare

Baxter Healthcare invests nearly $1 billion annually on innovative science to develop specialty therapies and medical products. To better assess the tradeoffs required in R&D decision-making, Baxter developed a portfolio system, "SPRINT," that captures technical and commercial uncertainty in R&D investments. Using spreadsheets, decision analysis software, and an efficient web-based data collection tool, SPRINT allows R&D managers to achieve financial rigor and insights into the tradeoffs required in R&D decision-making.

Our guest speaker, Phil Beccue, is Director of Strategy and Portfolio Management at Baxter. He first gave this presentation at the 2009 meeting of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), where it won the annual award for the the best application of decision analysis.

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April 1st, 2009

Better. Cheaper. Faster

When Inspire Pharmaceuticals, a North Carolina-based biotech company, first started managing its pipeline of products for diseases of the eyes and lungs, it used an approach familiar to many: the Balanced Scorecard. Eight key criteria were ranked by importance on a scale of 0 to 10. Each project in the pipeline -- discovery, development, or commercialization -- was classified by how well it met these key criteria.

With a potential range from 0 to 100, in theory this approach could provide guidance as to which projects to fund and which to drop. In reality, though, the top ranking project differed from the bottom ranking project by just 9 points on the 100-point scale, and nothing scored higher than 35. Not only that, but the projects at the top of the list were in late-stage development, and future expenses to commercialize were likely to be high. The projects at the bottom of the list were found to be those in early research; did it make sense to kill those low-scoring projects when the investment at this stage was so minimal? Hardly the clear insight managers were seeking.

The turning point for Inspire Pharmaceuticals came when the research and preclinical development organization began to focus on value-based management. This approach teased apart the commercial value of a project from the likelihood that the project would meet its internal development hurdles, allowing a better "apples-to-apple" comparison and generating valuable insights. This provides a roadmap that allows the organization to make better individual project decisions in the context of the entire portfolio, rather than make ad-hoc decisions in a state of urgency.

In this free, one-hour webinar, Ward Peterson, vice president for research and clinical development at Inspire, discusses the steps it took to maneuver the organization to a new process for portfolio management. Other speakers include David Matheson of SmartOrg, a leading provider of processes and software that optimize project and portfolio value, and Carl Spetzler of SDG, who will apply the principles of value-based management to a portfolio of business units.

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February 11th, 2009

The Decision Leadership Dilemma:

The most successful decision process leaders rarely use the word "process." Why? Because, simply put, the senior decision-makers they serve want to focus on decision-making - not "process" - and are not fond of formal decision processes.

So what is a decision leader to do?

Decision leaders are the people who lead decision-making projects and decision support within corporations. With crack analytical staff, they are well-equipped to provide the ultimate decision-makers with what they need to make a well-crafted decision: the appropriate frame, alternatives, information (not too much!), analytical rigor, to name a few. But in leading this team, they also walk a tightrope of managing the decision-makers' expectations, conflicting objectives, and packed schedules.

The most successful leaders coach decision boards to understand and embrace decision quality. They understand board members' perspectives, they lead decision-makers in addressing what is most important, and they are expert at facilitation.

In this webinar, our speakers discuss how a decision coach and process leader can come to understand senior-management perspectives, build commitment to decision quality, and plan and conduct decision board meetings. With practice and guidance, most decision support staff can learn to lead a decision board through a thorough consideration of decision content and quality, enabling productive dialogue and facilitating eventual agreement.

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December 10th, 2008

Thriving in the Midst of the Storm:

Do you have the skills to make good decisions in uncertain times? When making strategic decisions, our natural impulses and habits create traps that lead you astray. It doesn't need to be this way. A systematic approach to strategic decision-making and risk management can help you make high-quality decisions in any environment.

There are industries -- energy, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, to name a few -- that make big bets while facing great uncertainty over long time horizons. In good times and bad, they must evaluate investments and opportunities where the results of their decisions will not be known for years, sometimes (as in the case of pharmaceutical companies) decades. These companies do not have the luxury of waiting for the economy to improve. What can we learn from their tested approaches?

In this webinar, David Leonhardi describes how the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group applied decision methodology to develop the 787 Dreamliner, a truly big and risky bet. Dave, a business strategist at Boeing, describes the methods and approaches his team used to guide corporate leaders to a high-quality decision. Carl Spetzler, CEO of Strategic Decisions Group, will generalize the learnings and describe how they apply to making strategic decisions during the current storm.

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July 9th, 2008

Enterprise Risk Management

Enterprise Risk Management -- or ERM in management parlance -- is top of mind among many CEOs and boards of directors. And not just in the financial industries, where the subprime mortgage crisis has triggered a broad malaise. Debt rating agencies and regulators are beginning to step up their scrutiny of corporations' risk management processes. Now all corporate leaders are paying attention to their methods and processes for dealing with risk and uncertainty. ERM comes in many flavors -- COSO ERM, RIMS ERM, ISO 31000. Many companies have a Corporate Risk Officer in place or are implementing an enterprise governance, risk and compliance platform. But if your ERM is compliance-centric, the effort will miss the real opportunity to protect and enhance shareholder value.

Our speakers include Dr. Robert Mark, author of The Essentials of Risk Management and former Chief Risk Officer of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and Dr. Carl Spetzler, CEO of Strategic Decisions Group and a leading architect of SDG's approach to ERM.

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February 5th, 2008

Why Decisions Go Bad

Why do good decisions go bad and how can you avoid common analytic mistakes? Learn how the Strategic Decision and Risk Management Certificate can improve your decision-making framework.

Thank you for sending in your ugliest excuses for why decisions go bad. Below are all of the excuses submitted during the session.

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December 4th, 2007

Decision Leadership

This eBriefing will describe how to lead groups to high-quality decisions by leveraging your leadership abilities, facilitating in difficult situations, and managing group dynamics.

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April 18th, 2007

Enterprise Risk Management

Rather than viewing uncertainty only as a threat to be mitigated, organizations are recognizing that understanding uncertainty can give them a competitive advantage. This eBriefing will introduce you to how value-focused ERM creates a direct line of sight from shareholder value to risk management through an understanding of potential risk factors, decision analytic methods, and best practices. Learn about the risk management systems that leading corporations are using today to protect and grow shareholder value.

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April 11th, 2007

Strategic Innovation

This ebriefing discusses how corporations are working to reconcile the "creative" side of business ideation with the analytical side in ways that promote innovation while satisfying the need for financial rigor. Our presenters are Carl Spetzler, a leading speaker and author on business strategy development, and William Burnett, assistant professor of industrial design, innovation, and product development at Stanford.

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February 7th, 2007

Destructive Decision-Making Habits

Face it: We all have good and bad habits. When we encounter a difficult problem, our habit is to take it into our comfort zone. We deal with the problem based on what comes naturally, rather than what is important. Our personalities shape our approach. To be effective decision-makers, therefore, we need to understand ourselves. We need to know our strengths so that we can leverage them, and we need to recognize our weaknesses so that we can mitigate them.

• Reflect on your own decision-making style, as defined by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Learn how your personality helps and hinders you in decision-making
• Determine how to build your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses to become a more effective decision-maker.

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December 13th, 2006

Getting It Right the First Time

Successful business leaders know that decision-making must be fast, effective, and done right the first time. Business leaders are called upon to identify the decisions with the greatest impact on corporate performance. To meet these challenges, a new paradigm for strategic decision-making is required.

Watch this eBriefing to learn about the approach that has empowered many organizations to improve the quality and quickness of their strategic decisions. Learn:

• The art and the science of decision-making
• Six elements that ensure high-quality decisions
• How to translate quality decisions into effective action