The Smart Organization

Why do some firms deliver a stream of successful products and services while others continually make poor R&D decisions?  According to the Mathesons, successful firms have internalized the nine interlocking principles of smart organizations -- the building blocks of a corporate culture that emphasize making the right strategic decisions at the right times while aligning organizational practices to support these decisions and sustain their results.  Among the nine principles are embracing uncertainty; open information flow;  system thinking;   and developing a value creation culture. Once in place, these values enable companies to make appropriate choices about their R&D planning, portfolio management, and project and business strategies.  The authors stress the importance of evaluating trade-offs, creating alternatives, balancing risk and return, and getting buy-in across functional areas to ensure that decisions will be viable from both technical and management perspectives.   "If more companies were to act like this, there might be less demand for off-the-peg strategies from consultants." -- The Economist, July 11, 1998.  

David and Jim Matheson are authors of the bestselling book, The Smart Organization: Creating Value through Strategic R & D (Harvard Business School Press), and are founders of SmartOrg, a company dedicated to improving corporate capabilities through coaching and deploying leading strategic management software. Both have helped senior management teams from some of the largest corporations in the world to improve their results from strategy, portfolio management, product development, innovation, R&D, and capital investment. David is known for finding simple answers to some of the most complicated strategic business issues. He is an expert at measuring value and managing uncertainty. A gifted presenter, he routinely presents at product innovation and portfolio management conferences. He is a Fellow with the Society of Decision Professionals. His Ph. D. is from Stanford University where he teaches Strategic Portfolio Management. Jim is a world recognized leader in the development and application of decision analysis. In recognition of his career, he was awarded the Ramsey Medal, the highest honor in the field of decision analysis, for creating and managing the world's first decision analysis group at SRI International and for decades of contribution to the principles and applications of decision analysis. In addition to his professional practice, Dr. Matheson has been a Consulting Professor in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University since 1967. He holds a BS from the Carnegie-Mellon University, an MS and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and is a Fellow of INFORMS and of the Society of Decision Professionals.