Category: consulting

  • Prioritization model for the early-stage development pipeline to enable holistic portfolio management for a pharma company

    Prioritization model for the early-stage development pipeline to enable holistic portfolio management for a pharma company

    The client was seeking a way to evaluate early development projects that would take an integrated view of the portfolio and enable consistent trade-offs. The solution was a multi-attribute prioritization methodology to enable holistic portfolio management and value-based decision making. The innovative methodology uses multi-attribute utility theory and value-focused thinking within the framework of decision quality, providing a consistent evaluation of various early-stage projects within a heterogeneous set of disease areas, thereby enabling trade-offs based on agreed-to decision criteria.

    We started the project with a brainstorming/ issue raising session and interviews with key stakeholders to define the appropriate frame, i.e., the purpose, scope, and perspective, consistent with Decision Quality. Further, we challenged the decision makers in interviews to identify their objectives. Referring to value-focused thinking, we created an objectives hierarchy as a means ends network. Using this network and the scientific expertise of client teams, we created meaningful scales to operationalize the decision makers’ fundamental objectives. We facilitated trade-off discussions with the decision makers using the www.entscheidungsnavi.de/en. We built an evaluation model based on a structure that assessed the fundamental objectives and its trade-offs using multi-attribute utility theory. Evaluating a diverse set of pilot projects with a client’s expert group, we challenged the robustness of the methodology. With the backing of the organization, we assessed the entire portfolio of projects using this new methodology. We analyzed the portfolio and identified key impacts of the decision – the level of innovation of the portfolio. We facilitated decision-focused discussions with decision makers by separating discussions about scientific expectations from discussions about strategic preferences and beliefs. Ultimately, at the end of this group decision-making process, the decision makers made a portfolio decision.

    The Strategic Decisions Group served as principal investigator in this project.

  • Identifying and structuring of the objectives of the terrorist group Islamic State

    Identifying and structuring of the objectives of the terrorist group Islamic State

    Veröffentlichung

    • Siebert, Johannes; von Winterfeldt, Detlof; John, Richard. “Identifying and Structuring the Objectives of the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) and its Followers.” Decision Analysis (INFORMS), 13(1), 26-50. (Link)
    • Nagata, M., Abbas, A., Atran, S., Braniff, B., Bringuel, A., al-Chalabi, M., …. & Corman, S. (2014). Multi-‐Method Assessment of ISIL. (Link)
    • https://www.informs.org/Blogs/DECA-Blogs/DECA-Review/Identifying-and-Structuring-the-Objectives-of-the-Islamic-State-of-Iraq-and-the-Levant-ISIL-and-its-Followers (Link)
    • „Wer dem IS folgt, ist ein Loser“, in Welt am Sonntag, No. 4, 24th of January, 2016. (Link)
    • „Was macht den IS für Anhänger attraktiv?“, N24.de, 25th of January, 2016, (Link)

    In summer 2014, the terrorist group Islamic State was one of the most severe threats for the civilian population in the Middle East as well as in the West. The American government did not had a clear strategy how to deal with this new threat. Pres. Obama even admitted this in public (“We don’t yet have a complete strategy” for fighting the Islamic State in Iraq; 28. August 2014, in Washington Post).

    One of the main problems of the military leadership in the US was that the means, which were successful to protect the civilians against a terrorist group Al Qaeda, did not had the same impact to protect civilians against the terrorist group Islamic State. In the retrospective view, the main reason was that both terrorist groups pursue fundamentally different strategies. In order to pursue meaningful and effective measures to protect civilians it was necessary to identify the objectives of the terrorist group Islamic state. If you know what your opponent wants, it is much easier for you to prevent it.

    General Nagata, Head of Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) sent at the end of August 2014 an urgent request to the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at University of Southern California to find out, what the terrorist group Islamic State wants, i.e., the objectives the leaders of the followers, and why they are so attractive to their followers. This task is particularly difficult, because there is no access to the leaders and members of the terrorist group Islamic state for interviewing them. Therefore, the Office of the Joint Chief of Staff in the Pentagon reached out to 59 subject matter experts with backgrounds in terrorism research, Islam, political science, military strategy, the Middle East, peace research, etc. and conducted semi-structured interviews. Prof. von Winterfeldt, one of the worldwide leading counterterrorism researchers and founding director of CREATE, analyzed these interviews to identify and structure the objectives of the leadership and the followers of Islamic State. Prof. Siebert took the lead in the second, separate effort solely based on open sources available on the Internet, for example primary sources such as transcribed speeches of Islamic State leaders or secondary sources such as newspaper articles or scientific papers. In the next step, both separately and independently derived objectives hierarchies were compared and merged. There was a great deal of overlap and similarity.  However, the researchers also found some notable differences, especially regarding the followers’ objectives, which could be explained primarily by the different sources used.

    The results indicate that Islamic State’s leaders pursue four strategic objectives “Establish a Caliphate in Iraq and the Levant”, “Control and Govern the Caliphate”, “Expand Islam and Sharia Law Worldwide”, and “Recreate the Power and Glory of (Sunni) Islam”. The followers’ objectives can be partitioned into three strategic objectives: Humanitarian Fulfillment, Religious Fulfillment and Personal Fulfillment. The objectives identified from the subject matter expert interviews were similar to those identified from Islamic State leaders’ statements and the Internet. However, the Internet search revealed many more personal objectives of Islamic State followers. The results further indicate that Islamic State`s leadership objectives are closely aligned with those of its followers. There also is a sharp contrast between the objectives of Islamic State and those of Al Qaeda, particularly Islamic State’s emphasis on occupying and controlling territories on Iraq and Syria vs. Al Qaeda’s focus on worldwide jihad. The objectives hierarchy of the leaders of Islamic state is illustrated in the following figure.

    This study resulted in a successful publication in the INFORMS journal Decision Analysis. In addition, the editor of Decision Analysis, found that the importance of the study warranted the creation of a media campaign through special announcements and a blog, the first time that this journal has made such an effort. Perhaps more importantly, the work made an impact on a major policy area by providing a report to General Nagata and the US Special Operations Unit in the Middle East. The study was nominated for the final of the Practice Award of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society because of the high level of novelty of the methods to systematically identify and structure objectives of an organization when there is no access to the decision-maker and the high impact on the real world. A detailed description of the method and results, the project report and selected media coverage can be found in the following

  • »EMPOWER«:  A Decision Support System to Increase Efficiency of Logistic Processes in Upper Franconian SMEs

    »EMPOWER«:  A Decision Support System to Increase Efficiency of Logistic Processes in Upper Franconian SMEs

    Due to the changing framework conditions and customer requirements, such as shorter delivery times and increasing adherence to delivery dates, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Upper Franconia are increasingly confronted with an increase in logistics performance and a reduction in logistics costs. Logistics, especially production logistics, is an essential basis for these companies to generate competitive and cost advantages and is becoming increasingly important.

    In this context, however, many SMEs are asking themselves how the potential for generating competitive and cost advantages in production logistics can be identified, evaluated, and leveraged. Generally, it is possible to raise the identified potential by deriving concrete optimization measures. However, deriving these measures is difficult in many cases, and there is a deficit regarding a methodically structured and systematic decision-making process.

    The decision-making process in SMEs is often characterized by a system break between the analysis and decision-making phases. The result is that the recording and evaluation of the actual situation is insufficient or not taken into account in the decision-making phase, and the decision-making is neither based on the analysis phase nor based on an adequate definition of goals. The results here are implemented optimization measures (e.g., measures from the area of lean management) that make no or only a limited contribution to the achievement of the defined goals and may lead to deterioration at another point in the overall production-logistic system.

    The “empower” project aims to develop an interdisciplinary concept for methodical decision support when selecting alternative measures to increase the efficiency of production logistics processes in Upper Franconian SMEs. The concept is the basis for developing a software application that holistically supports the decision-making process. (© and further information: https://empower.fh-rosenheim.de/). An overview of relevant goals in production logistics can be found below.

  • Recommendations about decision-making for California ministry of transportation

    Recommendations about decision-making for California ministry of transportation

    The California Department of Transportation has a budget of approximately US$ 10 billion over four years for repairing the infrastructure of California’s freeways and freeway bridges. However, this budget is not sufficient to implement all the measures requested. A selection of measures to be carried out must therefore be made. Among other things, this is difficult because, for example, the representatives of the various Californian districts are demanding as many repair measures as possible in their own administrative area to improve their district’s infrastructure, create jobs, and ultimately be re-elected. Similar problems, for example, in allocating funds for broadband expansion, are all too well known in Germany. Clear and precise evaluation criteria are required for transparent evaluation and logical selection.



    In joint work with Ralph Keeney, I supported the California Department of Transportation in this selection decision in autumn 2014. In the first step, individual and group interviews were conducted with decision makers from the California Department of Transportation to identify relevant values and goals. In the second step, the goals were structured, and, in particular, the strategic objectives were calculated. In the third step, the goals were operationalized, i.e., made measurable. On this basis, the California Department of Transportation can evaluate all measures transparently and comprehensibly and make an appropriate decision about their selection.

  • Designing a Media-Specific Balanced Scorecard by Applying Value-Focused Thinking

    Designing a Media-Specific Balanced Scorecard by Applying Value-Focused Thinking

    Publications

    Siebert, Johannes U.; Kunz, Reinhard „Entwicklung einer Balanced Scorecard mit Value-focused Thinking am Beispiel eines mittelgroßen Medienunternehmens“. Controlling: Zeitschrift für erfolgsorientierte Unternehmenssteuerung, March 2016, 210-215. DOI:  10.15358/0935-0381-2016-3-209

    Kunz, Reinhard; Siebert, Johannes; Mütterlein. “Combining Value-Focused Thinking and Balanced Scorecard to Improve Decision-Making in Strategic Management”, Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, September-December, 2016, 225-241 DOI: 10.1002/mcda.1572

    Kunz, Reinhard; Siebert, Johannes; Mütterlein, Joschka. „A Media-Specific Balanced Scorecard Based on Value-Focused Thinking“, Journal of Media Business Studies, 13(4), 2016, 257-275. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16522354.2016.1220114

    The Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan and Norton 1992) is one of the five management tools used most often and has been implemented by nearly 40 percent of the companies (Rigby and Bilodeau 2013). Yet, there is no theoretically sound approach for developing a balanced scorecard. Value-focused thinking is a decision-making philosophy that fits perfectly to Balanced Scorecard creation. It provides methods and techniques for the identification and structuring of objectives that are suitable to systematically derive a scorecard from a means-ends network. However, such a means-ends network is often too complex for enduring use in strategic management. By adapting the network’s structure to the Balanced Scorecard’s layout, the profound and clear set of derived objectives and their measures provide a reasonable basis for applying methods of multi-criteria decision-making in an organization. In a case study, we develop a media-specific Balanced Scorecard to provide media decision-makers with a model that takes characteristics of media management into account and that helps to manage their company successfully. Using a scientifically sound approach that is based on value-focused thinking (Keeney, 1992), we interview the publisher, the CEO, nine management representatives, and ten key employees of a German medium-sized local newspaper company. Overall, 698 distinct objectives and 1,009 relationships are identified. By concentrating on the most important objectives, we derive a Balanced Scorecard with 33 objectives and 65 relationships, which are organized in seven perspectives. Because of its innovativeness, this project was runner-up in the final of the Practice Awards der Decision Analysis Society (INFORMS).

  • Constructing a comprehensive strategic objectives network for an Energy Supplier

    Constructing a comprehensive strategic objectives network for an Energy Supplier

    Germany is facing a huge disruptive change in its energy system. The speed of the transition from the fossil fuel and nuclear energy age to the renewable energies had been tremendously accelerated after Fukushima and the government´s decision to phase out of nuclear energy in the next 10 years. Therefore, traditional German utilities must make far-reaching decisions for ensuring long-term competitiveness. For that purpose, they need to define the future strategy and to agree on the right steps for its implementation. In the following 20 years decentralized renewable energy solutions, cost intensive offshore wind parks and the decommissioning of centralized conventional power plants have to be planned and realized. However, like in other industries, there is the tendency to deal with various decision problems isolated from each other without focusing on the big picture. Thereby it is often only vague defined what and how should be achieved. Furthermore, the search of alternatives is based on traditional thinking, which is likely to mislead in such a never before experienced disruptive change.

    Value-focused Thinking provides a holistic approach. It requests that companies should identify their values, i.e. what they care about, and translate these values into objectives (what should be achieved). The objectives are then be used to create systematically alternatives and identify decision opportunities (how this could be achieved). Generally, this procedure yields alternatives, which the company was not aware of before.

    In the case example, Prof. Ralph Keeney (Duke University) and I had discussions of about one hour with each of 19 employees of a big energy supplier (over 20 billion Euro turnover), including all members of the management board. The goal of each discussion was to access all thoughts of each individual that might be important for creating strategic objectives. After the discussion with each individual, we converted its thoughts into objectives. The initial step was simply to combine the 19 individual lists. This combined lists compassed approximately 450 total objectives. Next, we organized the objectives into categories that address different concerns. In this process, we had to develop the categories and then assign individual objectives on the list to appropriate categories. This process is done iteratively and hierarchically and results in a comprehensive network of strategic objectives (NOSO).

    In addition, a great benefit of the entire process was that the horizon of the interviewees is broadened through the interviews. In the project involving the German energy provider, this benefit is illustrated by a quotation of the personal assistant of a board member who was listening in the interview with her superior: “I work for him since half a year, but I never heard him thinking and arguing in such a broad manner”. Furthermore, the CEO said after the final presentation: “The clear structure of objectives helps me to better understand my company and will be certainly helpful to communicate my idea of my company to my employees as well as the Board of Directors.” This shows the level of stimulation that such a procedure can create.