A NETWORK-BASED FUTURES METHOD FOR STRATEGIC BUSINESS PLANNING

Many strategic decisions in business are made in a context which the d ecision makers perceive as uncertain, complex and opaque. A method, ba sed on Rhyne's field anomaly relaxation technique, is described of gen erating a network of states which characterise the environment or cont ext in which strategic decisions are to be made. These states represen t possible future conditions for the business, and knowledge of them a llows improved strategic understanding and decision making to be achie ved. This paper describes the method, using a representative real-life application to illustrate the process.