Regular marked price: $49.95Discount Price: $29.97
Cost Savings: $19.98 (40%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.452
EAN num: 9780470023686
ISBN number: 0470023686
Label: Wiley
Manufacturer: Wiley
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 380
Printing Date: January 18, 2005
Publishing house: Wiley
Sale Popularity Level: 28125
Studio: Wiley
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Scenario planning allows companies to move away from linear thinking and better understand external change. Eight years (and 30,000 copies) after publication Scenarios is still acknowledged as the definitive work in the field. Now, Kees van der Heijden brings his bestseller up to date, following up on his original case studies and adding significant new material. The Second Edition changes focus slightly by providing more in-depth analysis and application of the concept of the 'strategic conversation'. While maintaining the underlying rigour of the very first edition, van der Heijden revisits the text to make it far more practical and accessible, and in doing so gives you the tools you need to set out and negotiate a successful future course for your organization in the face of significant uncertainty.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
I have found this book a delightful and enlightening read. I've been a fan of Scenario Planning since reading Peter Swartz's "Art of the Long View." This if the very first book on the subject that i've read that actually provides the level of detail i wanted to see such that i could begin to practice scenario planning and incorporate the tools and language into my work environment. Great stuff.
Rated by buyers -
Many business books provide just enough information to whet executives' appetites for more advice accompanied by high consulting fees. Author Kees van der Heijden has written an exception. His comprehensive volume puts scenario building in historical context, explains its relationship to forecasting and tells you how to introduce scenario planning to your organization. Once you understand your corporate identity and your fundamental "Business Idea," he says, you can establish and enact informative scenarios that will prepare your company for several different versions of what lies ahead. In that way, scenario planning generates better decision making. We strongly recommend this book to top managers, strategists and planners, especially those who sense they're making decisions on the fly without having a structure for thinking deeply about future implications.
Rated by buyers -
I agree with the other reviewers, it is not a business novel. Fifteen pages per hour is a good score. However it is worth every minute. I recognise the strategy meetings that indeed most often strand in tactics at the very best. The idea of the Business Idea and the huge importance Kees lays on the need for an original, differentiating business element was for me the most important lesson. I am working for a 50 year old company, active in a domain that is under severe pressure of a quickly changing business model,
after years and years of 'innovation' around the same theme. This work was an eye opener.
Rated by buyers -
Disclaimer: This review is one of the assignments in a graduate course on forecasting.
First, I should say that this is an amazing book, but not necessarily an easy read. However, it repays the effort needed. A previous reviewer commented on the difficulty of the writing. I find the same thing, but it can be marked down to the Dutch/German writing style, which is both compact and tends toward longish sentences. Essentially this means that some sentences have to be read twice before the idea is absorbed. Let me be clear, this activity is well worth it!
This book is more than just about scenarios, offering a convincing and comprehensive understanding of how scenarios can and should be used as a form of strategic management.
Along the way, the reader is treated to clear and helpful explanations of such things as "the business idea of an organization" (ch. 3), "articulation of the business idea" in scenarios (ch. 8), "option planning" (ch. 11), and "the management of change" (ch. 12), among others.
Overall, scenarios as practiced and understood by Van Der Heijden (who spent 35 years at Shell and 6 years as an academic before writing this book), are useful tools. They are foremost organizational tools which are best used by entire organizations, not the solitary planner at their workbench.
If you want to understand how the future can be more accurately perceived (though not predicted), and how organizational learning can actually happen, then this is a worthy addition to the library of any management strategist or student of the future.
Rated by buyers 
-
Frankly I'm surprised at all the glowing reports without someone mentioning that this isn't the easiest book to read. Not that the language is difficult. Rather the sentences are long and often unclear, and there are too many reference to past and future chapters.
I'd suggest reading a few paragraphs before purchasing the book. You might find that this book is not for you -- it didn't do anything for me. I gave up half way through the book, maybe there was more value in the second half.
Find other books like this one:
