Strategic Management: The Impact of New Technologies III (Checking the Vital Signs)

An organization which went through a major change, like the replacement of a strategic system (e.g. ERP/BI implementations), needs to go through a period of attentive supervision to address the inherent issues that ideally need to be handled as they arise, to minimize their future effects. Some organizations might even go through a convalescence period, which risks to prolong itself if the appropriate remedies aren’t found. Therefore, one needs an entity, who/which has the skills to recognize the symptoms, understand what’s happening and why, respectively of identifying the appropriate actions.

Given technologies’ multi-layered complexity and the volume of knowledge for understanding them, the role of the doctor can be seldom taken by one person. Moreover, the patient is an organization, each person in the organization having usually local knowledge about the patient. The needed knowledge is dispersed trough the organization, and one needs to tap into that knowledge, identify the people close to technologies and business area, respectively allow such people exchange information on a regular basis.

The people who should know the best the organization are in theory the management, however they are usually too far away from technologies and often too busy with management topics. IT professionals are close to technologies, though sometimes too far away from the patient. The users have a too narrow overview, while from logistical and economic reasons the number of people involved should be kept to a minimum. A compromise is to designate one person from each business area who works with any of the strategic systems, and assure that they have the technical and business knowledge required. It’s nothing but the key-user concept, though for it to work the key-users need not only knowledge but also the empowerment to act when the symptoms appear.

Big organizations have also a product owner for each application who supervises the application through its entire lifecycle, and who needs to coordinate with the IT, business and service providers. This is probably a good idea in order to assure that the ROI is reached over time, respectively that the needs of the system are considered within the IT operation context. In small organizations, the role can be taken by a technical or a business resource with deeper skills then the average user, usually a key-user. However, unless joined with the key-user role, the product owner’s focus will be the product and seldom the business themes.

The issues that need to be overcome after major changes are usually cross-functional, being imperative for people to work together and find solutions. Unfortunately, it’s also in human nature to wait until the issues are big enough to get the proper attention. Unless the key-users have the time allocated already for such topics, the issues will be lost in the heap of operational and tactical activities. This time must be allocated for all key-users and the technical resources needed to support them.

Some organizations build temporary working parties (groups of experts working together to achieve specific goals) or similar groups. However, the statute of such group needs to be permanent if the organization wants to continuously have its health in check, to build the needed expertize and awareness about occurred or potential issues. Centers of excellence/expertize (CoE) or competency centers (CC) are such working groups with permanent statute, having defined roles, responsibilities, and processes for supporting and promoting the effective use of technologies within the organization, respectively of monitoring and systematically addressing the risks and opportunities associated with them.

There’s also the null hypothesis, doing nothing, relying solely on employees’ professionalism, though without defined responsibility, accountability and empowerment, it can get messy.

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Business Intelligence: New Technologies, Old Challenges I (Introduction)

Each important technology has the potential of creating divides between the specialists from a given field. This aspect is more suggestive in the data-driven fields like BI/Analytics or Data Warehousing. The data professionals (engineers, scientists, analysts, developers) skilled only in the new wave of technologies tend to disregard the role played by the former technologies and their role in the data landscape. The argumentation for such behavior is rooted in the belief that a new technology is better and can solve any problem better than previous technologies did. It’s a kind of mirage professionals and customers can easily fall under.

Being bigger, faster, having new functionality, doesn’t make a tool the best choice by default. The choice must be rooted in the problem to be solved and the set of requirements it comes with. Just because a vibratory rammer is a new technology, is faster and has more power in applying pressure, this doesn’t mean that it will replace a hammer. Where a certain type of power is needed the vibratory rammer might be the best tool, while for situations in which a minimum of power and probably more precision is needed, like driving in a nail, then an adequately sized hammer will prove to be a better choice.

A technology is to be used in certain (business/technological) contexts, and even if contexts often overlap, the further details (aka requirements) should lead to the proper use of tools. It’s in a professional’s duties to be able to differentiate between contexts, requirements and the capabilities of the tools appropriate for each context. In this resides partially a professional’s mastery over its field of work and of providing adequate solutions for customers’ needs. Especially in IT, it’s not enough to master the new tools but also have an understanding about preceding tools, usage contexts, capabilities and challenges.

From an historical perspective each tool appeared to fill a demand, and even if maybe it didn’t manage to fill it adequately, the experience obtained can prove to be valuable in one way or another. Otherwise, one risks reinventing the wheel, or more dangerously, repeating the failures of the past. Each new technology seems to provide a deja-vu from this perspective.

Moreover, a new technology provides new opportunities and requires maybe to change our way of thinking in respect to how the technology is used and the processes or techniques associated with it. Knowledge of the past technologies help identifying such opportunities easier. How a tool is used is also a matter of skills, while its appropriate use and adoption implies an inherent learning curve. Having previous experience with similar tools tends to reduce the learning curve considerably, though hands-on learning is still necessary, and appropriate learning materials or tutoring is upon case needed for a smoother transition.

In what concerns the implementation of mature technologies, most of the challenges were seldom the technologies themselves but of non-technical nature, ranging from the poor understanding/knowledge about the tools, their role and the implications they have for an organization, to an organization’s maturity in leading projects. Even the most-advanced technology can fail in the hands of non-experts. Experience can’t be judged based only on the years spent in the field or the number of projects one worked on, but on the understanding acquired about implementation and usage’s challenges. These latter aspects seem to be widely ignored, even if it can make the difference between success and failure in a technology’s implementation.

Ultimately, each technology is appropriate in certain contexts and a new technology doesn’t necessarily make another obsolete, at least not until the old contexts become obsolete.

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Data Migrations (DM): Conceptualization II (Plan vs. Concept vs. Strategy)

Data Migrations Series

A concept is a document that describes at high level the set of necessary steps and their implications to achieve a desired result, typically making the object of a project. A concept is usually needed to provide more technical and nontechnical information about the desired solution, the context in which a set of steps are conducted, respectively the changes considered, how the changes will be implemented and the further aspects that need to be considered. It can include a high-level plan and sometimes also information that typically belong in a Business Case – goals,objectives, required resources, estimated effort and costs, risks and opportunities.

A concept is used primarily as basis for sign-off as well for establishing common ground and understanding. When approved, it’s used for the actual implementation and solution’s validation. The concept should be updated as the project progresses, respectively as new information are discovered.

Creating a concept for a DM can be considered as best practice because it allows documenting the context, the technical and organizational requirements and dependencies existing between the DM and other projects, how they will be addressed. The concept can include also a high-level plan of the main activities (following to be detailed in a separate document).

Especially when the concept has an exploratory nature (due to incomplete knowledge or other considerations), it can be validated with the help of a proof-of-concept (PoC), the realization of a high-level-design prototype that focuses on the main characteristics of the solution and allows thus identifying the challenges. Once the PoC implemented, the feedback can be used to round out the concept.

Building a PoC for a DM should be considered as objective even when the project doesn’t seem to meet any major challenges. The PoC should resume in addressing the most important DM requirements, ideally by implementing the whole or most important aspects of functionality (e.g. data extraction, data transformations, integrity validation, respectively the import into the target system) for one or two data entities. Once the PoC built, the team can use it as basis for the evolutive development of the solution during the iterations considered.

A strategy is a set of coordinated and sustainable actions following a set of well-defined goals, actions devised into a plan and designed to create value and overcome further challenges. A strategy has the character of a concept though it has a broader scope being usually considered when multiple projects or initiatives compete for the same resources to provide a broader context and handle the challenges, risks and opportunities. Moreover, the strategy takes an inventory of the current issues and architecture – the 'AS-IS' perspective and sketches the to 'TO-BE' perspective by devising a roadmap that bridges the gap between the two.

In the case of a DM a strategy might be required when multiple DM projects need to be performed in parallel or sequentially, as it can help the organization to better manage the migrations.

A plan is a high-level document that describes the tasks, schedule and resources required to carry on an activity. Even if it typically refers to the work or product breakdown structure, it can cover other information usually available in a Business Case. A project plan is used to guide both project execution and project control, while in the context of Strategic Management the (strategic) plan provides a high-level roadmap on how the defined goals and objectives will be achieved during the period covered by the strategy.

For small DM projects a plan can be in theory enough. As both a strategy and a concept can include a high-level plan, the names are in praxis interchangeable.

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Strategic Management: Strategy & Tactics in Chess (Just the Quotes)

"If we assume that strategy consists in defining the object and making plans accordingly, and tactics in executing these plans, then we must look upon combination as the culmination of tactics. By combination we mean a short part of the game, within which a certain purpose is attained by force. Its sequence of moves forms a logical chain and cannot be divided up. When looked at one by one, they may seem to be purposeless or even mistakes, yet together they form an exceedingly beautiful unit. After a series of moves incomprehensible by themselves, the solution suddenly follows and their real purpose comes clearly to light. From this it follows that the aim must have already been conceived .from the first move of the combination. This is the difference between combinative and straightforward play. For a short space of time special and not general rules apply; as it were an exceptional state of things prevails." (Dr. Max Euwe, "Strategy & Tactices in chess", 1937)

"In chess we distinguish between Strategy and Tactics. Strategy is concerned with the setting of an aim and the forming of schemes. Tactics are concerned with the execution of the schemes. Strategy is abstract, tactics are concrete. Expressing it in a popular way: Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation." (Dr. Max Euwe, "Strategy & Tactices in chess", 1937)

"Notwithstanding the obviously great importance of tactics, nearly all existing manuals give greater prominence to strategica1 problems. This is principally due to two reasons: Firstly: the development of tactical capabilities is for the greater part a matter of practice and a question of routine. Secondly: the problems of tactics are so numerous and so varied in nature, that it seems an almost impossible undertaking to treat this domain systematically." (Dr. Max Euwe, "Strategy & Tactices in chess", 1937)

"We call games such as the preceeding one, in which strategy plays such an important part, positional games, in contrast to combinative games, in which the strategy is of secondary importance. One must not, however, identify strategy with positional play, for strategy is an aim and positional play represents a certain method of playing. The study of positional play teaches us the strategic lines." (Dr. Max Euwe, "Strategy & Tactices in chess", 1937)

"We have stated that strategy forms an indispensable element in the proper treatment of a game of chess; the same can be said, perhaps even with greater reason, about tactics. The chess-player who can judge a position very clearly and who can adapt his schemes to this position, will not be able to make use of these capabilities, if at the same time he is not well practised in tactics. As a rule a tactical mistake involves a much heavier punishment than a strategical one.
Nor are the conceptions of tactics and combinative play identical. One might say that tactics comprise all the moves in a game, and thus include also the combinations which occur in it." (Dr. Max Euwe, "Strategy & Tactices in chess", 1937)

"We make a difference between general and special principles of strategy. The general principles originate directly from the aim and the nature of Chess, and therefore they are constantly in force. It is, for instance, a general principle which goes without saying, that one has to procure the greatest possible freedom of action for one's men. The special principles apply only if the position shows certain peculiarities on account of which a special line of strategy has to be followed." (Dr. Max Euwe, "Strategy & Tactices in chess", 1937)

"Strategy means abstract thinking and planning, as opposed to tactics, which are the individual operations used to implement strategy. Tactics are specific; strategy is general. Tactics tend to be immediate, strategy long-term." (Bruce Pandolfini, "Weapons of Chess: An omnibus of chess strategy", 1989)

"Castling may even be unnecessary. In some cases it might be prudent to keep the king in the center, possibly not castling at all. The center is often safer than the flank in closed positions. Strategy and long-term planning assume great importance . You usually have time to maneuver against your opponent's weaknesses, something hard to do when the center is open." (Bruce Pandolfini, "Weapons of Chess: An omnibus of chess strategy", 1989)

"A weakness can be tactical or positional. A tactical weakness is one based on immediate or temporary circumstances. Given time, a tactical weakness can be defended or eliminated: protection can be added, or the threatened man moved to safety. [...] When people talk about weakness, they usually mean positional, not tactical weakness. Positional weaknesses tend to have long-term ramifications. They are not subject to the shifting situation from move to move as are tactical weaknesses. It takes more than a few moves to correct a positional weakness, if it can be done at all." (Bruce Pandolfini, "Weapons of Chess: An omnibus of chess strategy", 1989)

"The strengths, often concealed below the surface, depend on the activity and interrelationship of the pieces, and on the tactical possibilities and threats that can be generated. Bringing these latent resources to the surface requires a deep and penetrating analysis and accurate calculation." (Bruce Pandolfini, "Weapons of Chess: An omnibus of chess strategy", 1989)

"[...] events on the chessboard are by no means accidental, on the contrary: everything is linked with everything and the dynamics involved in selecting a correct strategic plan reflects, delicately but also accurately, your dynamic thinking abilities!" (Vlastimil Jansa, "Dynamics of Chess Strategy", 2003)

"Every player appreciating the aesthetics of chess dreams about games where a single main strategical plan is carried through without distraction to a successful conclusion; these should go hand in hand with the competitive aspects of chess. Such a course is very difficult because our opponent usually has his own plan, his own strategy and intentions - which are very different from ours. A flawless game won by somebody probably does not exist, a mistake must creep into the game somewhere." (Vlastimil Jansa, "Dynamics of Chess Strategy", 2003)

"However, the dynamic changes and laws should be understood, not only from the point of view of strategy and tactics but also from that of the time of the development of ideas." (Vlastimil Jansa, "Dynamics of Chess Strategy", 2003)

"Opening presents opportunities for the most complicated but also the most fantastic strategic and tactical manoeuvres. In both cases the prerequisite is an accurate rhythm, first, a slow, wait-and-see type, then, at the right moment, a rapid one with surprising turns [...] An average dancer does not have the gusto for it - nor does a chess player without a sufficient sense of dynamics!" (Vlastimil Jansa, "Dynamics of Chess Strategy", 2003)

"Strategy and tactics often work hand in glove." (Vlastimil Jansa, "Dynamics of Chess Strategy", 2003)

"The ability to think dynamically in opening strategy may also be illustrated by a mastery of transferring experience and ideas from one opening to another. Seemingly incoherent courses of the game may sometimes have much in common. And sometimes a simple comparison brings new experience, surprising findings and thoughts!" (Vlastimil Jansa, "Dynamics of Chess Strategy", 2003)

"A tactician feels at home reacting to threats and seizing opportunities on the battlefield. When your opponent has blundered, a winning tactic can suddenly appear and serve as both means and end. […] Every time you make a move, you must consider your opponent’s response, your answer to that response, and so on. A tactic ignites an explosive chain reaction, a forceful sequence of moves that carries the players along on a wild ride. You analyze the position as deeply as you can, compute the dozens of variations, the hundreds of positions. If you don’t immediately exploit a tactical opportunity, the game will almost certainly turn against you; one slip and you are wiped out. But if you seize the opportunities that your strategy creates, you’ll play your game like a Grandmaster." (Garry Kasparov, "How Life Imitates Chess", 2007)

"Against solid strategy, diversionary tactics will either be insufficient, or flawed. If they are insufficient, you can and should ignore them, continuing along your path. If they are radical enough to force you from your path, they are likely flawed in some way - unless you have blundered. Often an opponent is so eager to get you to change your course that he fatally weakens his own position in the attempt." (Garry Kasparov, "How Life Imitates Chess", 2007)

"Effective tactics result from alertness and speed, this is obvious, but they also require an understanding of all the possibilities at hand. Experience allows us to instantly apply the patterns we have successfully used in the past." (Garry Kasparov, "How Life Imitates Chess", 2007)

"In chess we see many cases of good strategy failing due to bad tactics and vice versa. A single oversight can undo the most brilliant concepts. Even more dangerous in the long run are cases of bad strategy succeeding due to good tactics, or due to sheer good fortune. This may work once, but rarely twice. This is why it is so important to question success as vigorously as you question failure." (Garry Kasparov, "How Life Imitates Chess", 2007)

"Tactics involve calculations that can tax the human brain, but when you boil them down, they are actually the simplest part of chess and are almost trivial compared to strategy." (Garry Kasparov, "How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom", 2007)

"Whereas strategy is abstract and based on long-term goals, tactics are concrete and based on finding the best move right now. Tactics are conditional and opportunistic, all about threat and defense. No matter what pursuit you’re engaged in - chess, business, the military, managing a sports team - it takes both good tactics and wise strategy to be successful." (Garry Kasparov, "How Life Imitates Chess", 2007)

"A chess hypothesis is basically the equivalent to drawing up a strategic plan. Experimentation in chess is equivalent to the moves that are found to carry out each plan. Throughout the history of chess, both the plans (the hypotheses) as well as the moves (the experiments) have been evolving (thanks to results from the practice of the game and from analyses), and this knowledge is the patrimony of professional players." (Diego Rasskin-Gutman, "Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind", 2009)

"Finally, chess has a science - like special attraction since it lets the player first propose hypotheses of different strategic plans that are based on the game rules and possible moves of the pieces and then refute those hypotheses after careful investigation of the different lines of play. This process is analogous to the everyday work of a scientist." (Diego Rasskin-Gutman, "Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind", 2009)

"Still, it is good to realize how the synthesis between strategy and tactics is established. Therefore, we must always consider the activity of the pieces on both sides. A player may have a fantastic pawn formation, control a beautiful open file and possess a strong square, but if he goes down to a direct mating attack on the other side of the board, all his strategic advantages come to naught." (Herman Grooten, "Chess Strategy for Club Players: The Road to Positional Advantage", 2009)

"tactics and strategy hold together, as it were. With tactics, a combination is a 'random picture' in the game. For example, a piece is unprotected and this can immediately be exploited. Strategy means longer-term thinking." (Herman Grooten, "Chess Strategy for Club Players: The Road to Positional Advantage", 2009)

"The problem of identifying the subset of good moves is much more complicated than simply counting the total number of possibilities and falls completely into the domain of strategy and tactics of chess as a game." (Diego Rasskin-Gutman, "Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind", 2009)

"Vision is a capacity to understand a position and to generate solid strategic plans. And a good base of chess knowledge is needed to understand what it means to play with brilliance or elegance." (Diego Rasskin-Gutman, "Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind", 2009)

"[...] we can gather that strategy and tactics are in constant conflict with each other. For example, a strategically beautiful set-up can be spoilt by an 'accidental combination' at any moment. But it is also true that a well-built-up game in most cases needs to be crowned with a tactical turn. In practice it has turned out that many players find it difficult to combine long-term play with a timely discovery of tactical finesses. Only the strongest players manage to find a kind of balance between these two components of the game." (Herman Grooten, "Chess Strategy for Club Players: The Road to Positional Advantage", 2009)

"Strategy must show us how to fight against players of our own strength and how to make progress. It must help us play a bit better this week than last week, not just by studying opening variations because, as Petrosian pointed out: 'to study opening variations without reference to the strategic concepts that develop from them in the middlegame is, in effect, to separate the head from the body." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"A good strategy is one that takes into account not only the requirements of the position, but also the opponent's strategy and tactics. Strategy lies between science and art. It supports the ability to evaluate positions, recognize patterns and imagine adequate plans. Modern chess both offers and requires more 'move-to-move' combat." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"Chess strategy must lose some of its grandness, some of its sentential character, must come back to earth and become practical, so that we can make it work for us move by move." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"Discovering the truth about a specific variation is a trial-and-error process. A complete strategy must consider human reactions as part of it." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"Dynamic strategy is not only a reconciliation of classical strategy with the new problems raised in competitive chess, but also an escape from the circle of slow manoeuvres which rarely produce more than half points. It aims to promote fighting and uncompromising chess. The history of chess shows clearly that players who are afraid of losing rarely obtain outstanding results. Dynamic strategy is an attempt to revise the standard, static, conservative opinion on what strategy should be (a collection of rules about the centre, fixed pawn structure, open files, minority attack, queen- or kingside majority, two bishops, weak pawns and squares, and the standard plans to cope with these occurrences) and highlight strategy as a continuous process dealing with the present, the near future, and the distant future of modern chess positions." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"Some theoreticians define tactics as combinations with sacrifices." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"Strategy places an arsenal of efficient weapons in our conscious as well as (hopefully) our subconscious mind; the better this arsenal, the less superficial the assessment of the actual and emergent set-ups. By associating the general aspects of a position with some concepts, our strategic knowledge builds the foundations for suitable plans." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"Strategy should neither be imparted nor perceived as a surrogate for ultimate truth, but as an organizer which turns an amorphous mass of perceptual concepts into a collection." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"Strategy shouldn't set rules to be followed blindly; nonetheless, any theory can declare its stepping-stone concepts." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"The main goal of dynamic strategy is to develop the personality of a player, to discover everyone's uniqueness and turn it to good account. Social dynamism and the human personality are two assets of our day, and this is reflected in chess. Tactics and dynamics are becoming predominant in chess. (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"The true task of strategy is to help evaluate chess positions, their present state and their future possibilities. The ability to evaluate correctly is at least as important as tactical skill. Evaluation is, to an extent, subjective (it depends on which side of the board Tal is on!) and a strategy which claims 100% objectivity is utopian. A player must be flexible enough to adapt himself to the strategy, the strategy must be flexible enough to adapt itself to the player and both, in turn, must be flexible enough to adapt themselves to the position." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"The basic functions of strategy are to help the player: to reach a superficial evaluation of the position; to understand and/ or anticipate the opponent's plan; to understand and/ or anticipate the opponent's other weapons, especially when his play doesn't seem to obey a logical plan; to establish his own plan." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"In chess we use the term strategy as opposed to tactics and we assimilate it with positional play. I must show from the beginning that the use of these terms can be confusing. Strategy is not the opposite of tactics; it is the theory of tactics. It tries to clarify the general lines of tactics as well as its directions. In other words, it gives pointers for discovering plans, and plans, in their turn, direct the moves in given positions." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)

"Appreciation of both strategy and tactics are the 'Ying and Yang' of a strong chess player. They sit side by side, in harmony with each other and you cannot hope to improve your play without working on both aspects of the game." (Adam Hunt, "Chess Strategy: Move by move", 2013)

"Chess strategy is concerned with the correct evaluation of a position and the formulation of an effective plan based upon its characteristic features. When the word 'strategy' is mentioned, people tend to jump to the conclusion that we are talking about long-term middlegame planning, and that you have to be some sort of psychic who can see the future, but that is rarely the case. Many features of a given position which are strategically important will evolve out of the opening and finish in the endgame, so it would be foolish to completely ignore these phases of the game. Plans can be short or long term, depending on how the landscape in front of you is changing as the game progresses. This is why the subject is so complex and so much material is available on it." (Adam Hunt, "Chess Strategy: Move by move", 2013)

Strategic Management: Opportunities (Just the Quotes)

"No man can tell what the future may bring forth, and small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises." (Demosthenes, "Ad Leptinum", cca. 4th century BC)

"Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages." (Samuel Johnson, "The Idler", 1801)

"Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems. [...] Resources, to produce results, must be allocated to opportunities rather than to problems." (Peter F Drucker, "Managing for Results: Economic Tasks and Risk-taking Decisions", 1964)

"The best way to come to grips with one’s own business knowledge is to look at the things the business has done well, and the things it apparently does poorly. […] Knowledge is a perishable commodity. It has to be reaffirmed, relearned, repracticed all the time. One has to work constantly at regaining one’s specific excellence. […] The right knowledge is the knowledge needed to exploit the market opportunities." (Peter F Drucker, "Managing for Results: Economic Tasks and Risk-taking Decisions", 1964)

"A natural companion to the competitive advantage is the synergy component of strategy. This requires that opportunities within the scope possess characteristics which will enhance synergy." (Igor Ansoff, "Corporate Strategy", 1965)

"Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity" (Warren G Bennis, "Why Leaders Can't Lead: The Unconscious Conspiracy Continues", 1976) 

"Needs and opportunities are always there. We just have to drive ourselves to find the practical ones." (Taiichi Ohno, "Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production", 1978)

"No matter how difficult or unprecedented the problem, a breakthrough to the best possible solution can come only from a combination of rational analysis, based on the real nature of things, and imaginative reintegration of all the different items into a new pattern, using nonlinear brainpower. This is always the most effective approach to devising strategies for dealing successfully with challenges and opportunities, in the market arena as on the battlefield." (Kenichi Ohmae, "The Mind Of The Strategist", 1982)

"No other area offers richer opportunities for successful innovation than the unexpected success." (Peter Drucker, "Innovation and Entrepreneurship", 1985)

"Opportunities abound for linking productivity to business strategy." (John L Grahn, Harvard Business Review, 1986)

"The opportunities and threats existing in any situation always exceed the resources needed to exploit the opportunities or avoid the threats. Thus, strategy is essentially a problem of allocating resources. If strategy is to be successful, it must allocate superior resources against a decisive opportunity." (William Cohen, "Winning on the Marketing Front: The corporate manager's game plan", 1986)

"Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together." (Robert Redford, Harvard Business Review, 1987)

"But business fosters a particular fondness for tactics. That emphasis can lead to an imbalance that reduces the opportunities for success. We get so wrapped up in tactics - doing things to meet a quota or deadline, executing someone else's orders - that we miss the reason behind the tactics. Eventually the purpose of the tactic fades away, but the rules, quotas, deadlines, forms, and frustration remain." (Terry Richey, "The Marketer's Visual Tool Kit", 1994)

"Effective people are not problem-minded; they're opportunity minded. They feed opportunities and starve problems." (Stephen Covey, "Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People", 1994)

"The key to successful brainstorming lies in the team's willingness to suspend disbelief and experiment with new ways of looking at opportunities - something that can be done with a Morpho Box. At this point, concentrating on only the positive possibilities without reference to the inherent problems makes the process work." (Terry Richey, "The Marketer's Visual Tool Kit", 1994)

"Don’t solve problems; pursue opportunities. […] In both the short and long term, our ability to solve social and economic problems will be limited primarily to our lack of imagination in seizing opportunities, rather than trying to optimize solutions. There is more to be gained by producing more opportunities than by optimizing existing ones." (Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 radical strategies for a connected world", 1998)

"[...] a strategic inflection point is a time in the life of business when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights. But it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end." (Andrew S Grove, "Only the Paranoid Survive", 1998)

"Clear goals, multiple strategies, clear roles and responsibilities, boldness, teamwork, speed, flexibility, the ability to change, managing risk, and seizing opportunities when they arise are important characteristics in gaining objectives." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"[...] incomplete, inaccurate, and invalid data can cause problems for an organization. These problems are not only embarrassing and awkward but will also cause the organization to lose customers, new opportunities, and market share." (Margaret Y Chu, "Blissful Data", 2004)

"Decision making is the process of identifying problems and opportunities and then resolving them. Decision making involves effort before and after the actual choice." (Richard L Daft & Dorothy Marcic, "Understanding Management" 5th Ed., 2006)

"Cumulative errors depend largely on the big surprises, the big opportunities. Not only do economic, financial, and political predictors miss them, but they are quite ashamed to say anything outlandish to their clients - and yet events, it turns out, are almost always outlandish." (Nassim N Taleb, "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable", 2007) 

"Systemic problems trace back in the end to worldviews. But worldviews themselves are in flux and flow. Our most creative opportunity of all may be to reshape those worldviews themselves. New ideas can change everything." (Anthony Weston, "How to Re-Imagine the World", 2007)

"Every moment – every blink – is composed of a series of discrete moving parts, and every one of those parts offers an opportunity for intervention, for reform, and for correction." (Malcolm Gladwell, "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking", 2008)

"Synergy is the combined action that occurs when people work together to create new alternatives and solutions. In addition, the greatest opportunity for synergy occurs when people have different viewpoints, because the differences present new opportunities. The essence of synergy is to value and respect differences and take advantage of them to build on strengths and compensate for weaknesses." (Richard L Daft, "The Leadership Experience" 4th Ed., 2008)

"With respect to SWOT, threats are represented by the competitive products or their characteristics that offer the competition the best opportunity to damage your reputation." (Steven G Haines, "The Product Manager's Desk Reference", 2008)

"Bringing together the right information with the right people will dramatically improve a company's ability to develop and act on strategic business opportunities." (Bill Gates,  "Business @ the Speed of Thought: Succeeding in the Digital Economy", 2009) 

"Businesses always have opportunities to improve service, product lines, manufacturing techniques, and the like, and obviously these opportunities should be seized. But a business that constantly encounters major change also encounters many chances for major error." (Warren Buffett, "Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha", 2009)

"Implementing new systems provides organizations with unique opportunities not only to improve their technologies, but to redefine and improve key business processes. Ultimately, for organizations to consider these new systems successes, the post-legacy environment must ensure that business processes, client end users, and systems work together." (Phil Simon, "Why New Systems Fail: An Insider’s Guide to Successful IT Projects", 2010)

"For the most part, the best opportunities now lie where your competitors have yet to establish themselves, not where they're already entrenched." (Paul Allen, "Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft", 2011)

"Data are essential, but performance improvements and competitive advantage arise from analytics models that allow managers to predict and optimize outcomes. More important, the most effective approach to building a model rarely starts with the data; instead it originates with identifying the business opportunity and determining how the model can improve performance." (Dominic Barton & David Court, "Making Advanced Analytics Work for You", 2012) 

"Even with simple and usable models, most organizations will need to upgrade their analytical skills and literacy. Managers must come to view analytics as central to solving problems and identifying opportunities - to make it part of the fabric of daily operations." (Dominic Barton & David Court, "Making Advanced Analytics Work for You", 2012)

"The passage of time and the action of entropy bring about ever-greater complexity - a branching, blossoming tree of possibilities. Blossoming disorder (things getting worse), now unfolding within the constraints of the physics of our universe, creates novel opportunities for spontaneous ordered complexity to arise." (D J MacLennan, "Frozen to Life", 2015)

"A clear, thoughtful mission statement, developed collaboratively with and shared with managers, employees, and often customers, provides a shared sense of purpose, direction, and opportunity." (Philip Kotler & Kevin L Keller, "Marketing Management" 15th Ed., 2016)

"Sometimes, the best way to broaden your search is to look inside your own organization. Great solutions often come along at the wrong time, and the sprint can be a perfect opportunity to rejuvenate them. Also look for ideas that are in progress but unfinished - and even old ideas that have been abandoned." (Jake Knapp et al, "Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days", 2016)

"[...] strategy is about determining the problems and opportunities in front of you, defining them properly, and shaping a course of action that will give your business the greatest advantage. Balancing problem solving with creating and exploiting new opportunities through imagination and analysis is the cornerstone of a great strategy." (Eben Hewitt, "Technology Strategy Patterns: Architecture as strategy" 2nd Ed., 2019)

Graphical Representation: Opportunities (Just the Quotes)

"Charts offer opportunities to distort information, to misinform. An old adage can be extended to read: 'There are lies, damned lies, statistics and charts'. Our visual impressions are often more memorable than our understanding of the facts they describe. [...] Never let your design enthusiasms overrule your judgement of the truth." (Bruce Robertson, "How to Draw Charts & Diagrams", 1988)

"Graphical illustrations should be simple and pleasing to the eye, but the presentation must remain scientific. In other words, we want to avoid those graphical features that are purely decorative while keeping a critical eye open for opportunities to enhance the scientific inference we expect from the reader. A good graphical design should maximize the proportion of the ink used for communicating scientific information in the overall display." (Phillip I Good & James W Hardin, "Common Errors in Statistics (and How to Avoid Them)", 2003)

"If we attempt to map the world of a story before we explore it, we are likely either to (a) prematurely limit our exploration, so as to reduce the amount of material we need to consider, or (b) explore at length but, recognizing the impossibility of taking note of everything, and having no sound basis for choosing what to include, arbitrarily omit entire realms of information. The opportunities are overwhelming." (Peter Turchi, "Maps of the Imagination: The writer as cartographer", 2004)

"All graphics by definition employ metaphors, but some are more metaphorical than others. Sometimes the metaphor escapes from its graphical cage, takes on a life of its own and provides exciting deception opportunities." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)

"Category definition and selection in the pre-graphical phase of communication offer varied manipulation opportunities. But once we get to designing the chart itself category distortion opportunities are even more attractive." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)

"Design has the power to enrich our lives by engaging our emotions through image, form, texture, color, sound, and smell. The intrinsically human-centered nature of design thinking points to the next step: we can use our empathy and understanding of people to design experiences that create opportunities for active engagement and participation." (Tim Brown, "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation", 2009)

"Competition for your audiences attention is fierce. The fact that infographics are unique allows organizations an opportunity to make the content they are publishing stand out and get noticed." (Mark Smiciklas, "The Power of Inforgraphics", 2012)

"Sparklines aren't necessarily a variation on the line chart, rather, a clever use of them. [...] They take advantage of our visual perception capabilities to discriminate changes even at such a low resolution in terms of size. They facilitate opportunities to construct particularly dense visual displays of data in small space and so are particularly applicable for use on dashboards." (Andy Kirk, "Data Visualization: A successful design process", 2012)

"The process of visual analysis can potentially go on endlessly, with seemingly infinite combinations of variables to explore, especially with the rich opportunities bigger data sets give us. However, by deploying a disciplined and sensible balance between deductive and inductive enquiry you should be able to efficiently and effectively navigate towards the source of the most compelling stories." (Andy Kirk, "Data Visualization: A successful design process", 2012)

"Data storytelling gives your insight the best opportunity to capture attention, be understood, be remembered, and be acted on. An effective data story helps your insight reach its full potential: inspiring others to act and drive change." (Brent Dykes, "Effective Data Storytelling: How to Drive Change with Data, Narrative and Visuals", 2019)