The Little Book of Managing Uncertainty

The Little Book of Managing Uncertainty PDF Author: Harry Katzan Jr.
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1663244014
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Book Description
Advanced technology is the cornerstone of modern society. Some of the reasons for studying the methods and applications of technology are that the subject serves as the basis of our everyday existence. We use technology on a daily basis, yet we know very little about the underlying concepts. We have no introduction to the subject matter, no principles of best behavior, and no theories. It is a time for change and this book fills that need. In this book, we are going to take a look at the evolving technology of uncertainty. Getting a handle on uncertainty permits a practitioner to perform in an excellent manner on tasks from management to applied technology. Modern government, such as the intelligence services, is exceedingly complicated, and uncertainty exists in almost every aspect of their daily lives. Business and finance have similar requirements so that participants can excel in all aspects of the decisions of everyday business life. The ability to deal with uncertainty is based on the methods of combining diverse possibilities into a coherent whole called a frame of discernment. Then, using a methodology known as Dempster-Shafer theory, evidence can be evaluated and a basis for decision making can be discerned. The effective use of Dempster-Shafer theory is conceptualized through computer methodology. Once determined to be unsolvable by experts, the methods contained herein have been solved by the author as a visiting professor in Switzerland. The methods are summarized in a research monograph entitled Managing Uncertainty and simplified in this book, along with an appropriate appendix that introduces the methodology. The book is comprised of introductory material followed by appropriate examples in essays that can be read in any order determined by the reader’s interests. The essays are based on peer reviewed journal articles presented at technical conferences. The various essays can be addressed in any order as they are adjusted to fit the needs of practicing professionals. Harry Katzan is a professor, author, and consultant, and enjoys outdoor activities.

The Little Book of Managing Uncertainty

The Little Book of Managing Uncertainty PDF Author: Harry Katzan Jr.
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1663244014
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 102

Get Book Here

Book Description
Advanced technology is the cornerstone of modern society. Some of the reasons for studying the methods and applications of technology are that the subject serves as the basis of our everyday existence. We use technology on a daily basis, yet we know very little about the underlying concepts. We have no introduction to the subject matter, no principles of best behavior, and no theories. It is a time for change and this book fills that need. In this book, we are going to take a look at the evolving technology of uncertainty. Getting a handle on uncertainty permits a practitioner to perform in an excellent manner on tasks from management to applied technology. Modern government, such as the intelligence services, is exceedingly complicated, and uncertainty exists in almost every aspect of their daily lives. Business and finance have similar requirements so that participants can excel in all aspects of the decisions of everyday business life. The ability to deal with uncertainty is based on the methods of combining diverse possibilities into a coherent whole called a frame of discernment. Then, using a methodology known as Dempster-Shafer theory, evidence can be evaluated and a basis for decision making can be discerned. The effective use of Dempster-Shafer theory is conceptualized through computer methodology. Once determined to be unsolvable by experts, the methods contained herein have been solved by the author as a visiting professor in Switzerland. The methods are summarized in a research monograph entitled Managing Uncertainty and simplified in this book, along with an appropriate appendix that introduces the methodology. The book is comprised of introductory material followed by appropriate examples in essays that can be read in any order determined by the reader’s interests. The essays are based on peer reviewed journal articles presented at technical conferences. The various essays can be addressed in any order as they are adjusted to fit the needs of practicing professionals. Harry Katzan is a professor, author, and consultant, and enjoys outdoor activities.

Managing Uncertainty

Managing Uncertainty PDF Author: Michel Syrett
Publisher: The Economist
ISBN: 1610395131
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Managing uncertainty has become a new business imperative. Technological discontinuities, regulatory upheavals, geopolitical shocks, abrupt shifts in consumer tastes or behavior, and many other factors have emerged or intensified in recent years and together conspire to undermine even the most carefully constructed business strategies. Managing Uncertainty: Strategies for Surviving and Thriving in Turbulent Times addresses these new challenges, assessing the sources of business turbulence, how to classify uncertainty, and the different ways in which uncertainty can be embraced to allow greater innovation and growth. Drawing on examples from around the world, the book presents the most recent ideas on what it means to manage uncertainty, from practitioners, academics, and consultants. Addresses the challenges of managing uncertainty in business Presents a step-by-step guide to managing business uncertainty Draws examples from major international companies, including Intel, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Boeing, Quinetiq, Philips, China Telecom, Ford, Apple, Shell, Glaxo SmithKline and many more Written for business leaders and managers looking for new ways to ensure that their businesses continue to thrive in a world of increasing complexity, Managing Uncertainty presents new and innovative ideas about reducing risk by understanding difficult-to-predict shifts.

Managing Project Uncertainty

Managing Project Uncertainty PDF Author: David Cleden
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351920413
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 131

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Book Description
Dealing effectively with uncertainty requires today's project manager to be familiar with a broad spectrum of strategies, encompassing both 'hard' and 'soft' methods. This theme of unified thinking (i.e. the need to selectively draw upon a wide range of strategies in any given situation) will differentiate the book from its contemporaries. By picking up where traditional risk management techniques begin to fail, it brings together leading-edge thinking from a variety of disciplines and shows how these techniques can be used to conquer uncertainty in projects. The ability to make good decisions when faced with uncertainty is the real challenge. It is a universal truth that a decision is only as good as the information it is based on. But good information is often hard to come by, and all projects are vulnerable to the unknown and the unknowable. Thus, uncertainty becomes the sworn enemy of the project manager. Wherever we try to analyse, quantify, plan and act, uncertainty lies in wait to surprise us with its ambiguity and unpredictability. It lurks in every stage of the project lifecycle: in the planning (how long will this really take?), the initiation (this isn't the situation I expected!), the execution (who could have foreseen that happening?), and even the completion of a project (where are the expected benefits?). But managing uncertainty is a lot more than just applying risk management techniques. It requires a deep appreciation of how uncertainty arises and, by recognising its different guises, the appropriate strategies can be formulated. If we can learn how to reduce uncertainty, we can make better management decisions and increase the chances of the project succeeding. This book addresses five key questions: ¢ Why is there uncertainty in projects? ¢ How do you spot the symptoms of uncertainty, preferably at an early stage? ¢ What can be done to avoid uncertainty? ¢ What strategies can be used to deal with project uncertainty? ¢ How can both the individual and the organisation learn to cope more effectively in the future? The reader is assumed to be a either a project management professional, or a senior manager looking for ways to improve project management strategy within their organisation. As such, a foundation in project management basics is assumed, although not essential. The book then builds on this by exposing new ideas and concepts, and shows how these can be harnessed to tackle uncertainty in its many guises.

Management of Uncertainty

Management of Uncertainty PDF Author: Gudela Grote
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1848823738
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
As I write, the financial systems of the world are collapsing with still no clear indication of what the consequences will be and which measures should be taken to avoid such a crisis in the future. There seems to be agreement though, that the financial instruments introduced in the past few decades entailed far too much complexity and uncertainty and that there was too little regulatory control over the use of these instruments. Management of uncertainty with the aim of achieving self-control is the core concern of this book. It was not written with a focus on financial systems, but many concepts developed in this book are applicable to this field as well. The - neric principles of reducing, maintaining or increasing uncertainties in view of the different contingencies an organization is faced with, the fundamental issue of how much control is possible and who should be in control, and the question of how much and what kind of regulation is necessary with the overall aim of finding an appropriate balance between system stability and flexibility are at the centre of heated debates on the future of finance.

Managing the Unknown

Managing the Unknown PDF Author: Christoph H. Loch
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118276825
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Managing the Unknown offers a new way of looking at the problem of managing projects in novel and unknown environments. From Europe's leading business school, this book shows how to manage two fundamental approaches that, in combination, offer the possibility of coping with unforeseen influences that inevitably arise in novel projects: * Trial-and-Error Learning allows for redefining the plan and the project as the project unfolds * Selectionism pursues multiple, independent trials in order to pick the best one at the end Managing the Unknown offers expert guidelines to the specific project mindsets, infrastructures, and management methods required to use these project management approaches and achieve success in spite of unforeseen obstacles. This book equips readers with: * Causal explanations of why unforeseeable factors in novel projects make traditional project planning and project risk management insufficient * Directly applicable management tools that help managers to guide novel and high-uncertainty projects * Real-world case studies of both successful and unsuccessful approaches to managing high uncertainty in novel projects

Small Data, Big Disruptions

Small Data, Big Disruptions PDF Author: Martin Schwirn
Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser
ISBN: 1632657430
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
A method to find and connect the small data clues that show what the future’s big picture will look like. “Strategy decisions are like playing high-stakes blackjack, and scanning is the technique for counting cards. Martin Schwirn isn’t a pro gambler, but an expert in scanning.” —Bill Ralston, cofounder of Strategic Business Insights and author of Scenario Planning Handbook An organization’s future success depends on their decision makers’ ability to anticipate changes and disruptions in the marketplace. But how do you get information about tomorrow today? How can your decisions today account for tomorrow’s uncertainties? Small Data, Big Disruptions presents a tool kit to foresee coming changes: Understand why big data will not help you with understanding tomorrow’s disruptions. The future starts with small data—first. Learn the proven 4-step process to capture small data that help envision the future. See examples of how the process anticipated major disruptions. Implement the process in your organization and learn how to initiate meaningful actions. Small Data, Big Disruptions provides the information you need to anticipate the future, understand tomorrow’s market dynamics, and make the necessary decisions to meet the future on your terms. Small Data, Big Disruptions lets you exploit the period between the moment you could know about emerging disruptions and the moment most everybody will know about it. It’s the difference between being ahead of the curve and struggling to catch up.

Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers

Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers PDF Author: John Kay
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324004789
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
Much economic advice is bogus quantification, warn two leading experts in this essential book, now with a preface on COVID-19. Invented numbers offer a false sense of security; we need instead robust narratives that give us the confidence to manage uncertainty. “An elegant and careful guide to thinking about personal and social economics, especially in a time of uncertainty. The timing is impeccable." — Christine Kenneally, New York Times Book Review Some uncertainties are resolvable. The insurance industry’s actuarial tables and the gambler’s roulette wheel both yield to the tools of probability theory. Most situations in life, however, involve a deeper kind of uncertainty, a radical uncertainty for which historical data provide no useful guidance to future outcomes. Radical uncertainty concerns events whose determinants are insufficiently understood for probabilities to be known or forecasting possible. Before President Barack Obama made the fateful decision to send in the Navy Seals, his advisers offered him wildly divergent estimates of the odds that Osama bin Laden would be in the Abbottabad compound. In 2000, no one—not least Steve Jobs—knew what a smartphone was; how could anyone have predicted how many would be sold in 2020? And financial advisers who confidently provide the information required in the standard retirement planning package—what will interest rates, the cost of living, and your state of health be in 2050?—demonstrate only that their advice is worthless. The limits of certainty demonstrate the power of human judgment over artificial intelligence. In most critical decisions there can be no forecasts or probability distributions on which we might sensibly rely. Instead of inventing numbers to fill the gaps in our knowledge, we should adopt business, political, and personal strategies that will be robust to alternative futures and resilient to unpredictable events. Within the security of such a robust and resilient reference narrative, uncertainty can be embraced, because it is the source of creativity, excitement, and profit.

Uncertainty in Industrial Practice

Uncertainty in Industrial Practice PDF Author: Etienne de Rocquigny
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470770740
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Managing uncertainties in industrial systems is a daily challenge to ensure improved design, robust operation, accountable performance and responsive risk control. Authored by a leading European network of experts representing a cross section of industries, Uncertainty in Industrial Practice aims to provide a reference for the dissemination of uncertainty treatment in any type of industry. It is concerned with the quantification of uncertainties in the presence of data, model(s) and knowledge about the system, and offers a technical contribution to decision-making processes whilst acknowledging industrial constraints. The approach presented can be applied to a range of different business contexts, from research or early design through to certification or in-service processes. The authors aim to foster optimal trade-offs between literature-referenced methodologies and the simplified approaches often inevitable in practice, owing to data, time or budget limitations of technical decision-makers. Uncertainty in Industrial Practice: Features recent uncertainty case studies carried out in the nuclear, air & space, oil, mechanical and civil engineering industries set in a common methodological framework. Presents methods for organizing and treating uncertainties in a generic and prioritized perspective. Illustrates practical difficulties and solutions encountered according to the level of complexity, information available and regulatory and financial constraints. Discusses best practice in uncertainty modeling, propagation and sensitivity analysis through a variety of statistical and numerical methods. Reviews recent standards, references and available software, providing an essential resource for engineers and risk analysts in a wide variety of industries. This book provides a guide to dealing with quantitative uncertainty in engineering and modelling and is aimed at practitioners, including risk-industry regulators and academics wishing to develop industry-realistic methodologies.

Risk, Uncertainty and Profit

Risk, Uncertainty and Profit PDF Author: Frank H. Knight
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
ISBN: 1602060053
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
A timeless classic of economic theory that remains fascinating and pertinent today, this is Frank Knight's famous explanation of why perfect competition cannot eliminate profits, the important differences between "risk" and "uncertainty," and the vital role of the entrepreneur in profitmaking. Based on Knight's PhD dissertation, this 1921 work, balancing theory with fact to come to stunning insights, is a distinct pleasure to read. FRANK H. KNIGHT (1885-1972) is considered by some the greatest American scholar of economics of the 20th century. An economics professor at the University of Chicago from 1927 until 1955, he was one of the founders of the Chicago school of economics, which influenced Milton Friedman and George Stigler.

The Management of Uncertainty

The Management of Uncertainty PDF Author: Angela Liberatore
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134391463
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
This investigative analysis studies why key European countries responded differently to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and what can be learned from it. The author details why the accident was defined differently in various countries, why actions were or were not taken, and what was learned about the management of nuclear risk. Furthermore, Liberatore studies the short-term and long-term responses and consequences of Chernobyl not only in specific countries, but within the European Union as a whole. Liberatore also provides a policy communication model to illustrate the interaction among the key personnel in such incidents: the scientists, the politicians, the interest groups, and the mass media. The author's focus upon uncertainty managementis a compelling account for all who seek to understand and improve the practical management of transboundary risks.