Part V

PART V: Developing Alternatives

Chapter 8: Alternatives Are Not a Buffet

Alternatives That Win MECE Options + Decision Criteria That Make Your Recommendation Obvious

A common mistake is to create three or four random ideas and then select the one the team likes best. That isn’t strategic decision-making. Alternatives should emerge from your analysis. They should be:

• Realistic
  • The organisation could actually pursue them.
• Implementable
  • The organisation could execute them.
• MECE
  • They should be: Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive.

In other words: each option is meaningfully different, and the options collectively cover the reasonable strategic choices.

Don’t Build a Straw Man

One of the worst habits in case competitions is creating:

• one good idea;
• one mediocre idea;
• one obviously terrible idea.

Then the team announces: “Clearly, Option A wins.” Of course it does. That doesn’t demonstrate strategic thinking. The alternatives should all be credible. Your recommendation should prevail because it is superior, not because the other options are ridiculous.

Chapter 9: Decision Criteria

Video: Alternatives That Win MECE Options + Decision Criteria That Make Your Recommendation Obvious

Decision criteria are the standards you use to judge alternatives. The criteria should connect directly to:

• the organisation’s mission;
• strategy;
• culture;
• values;
• capabilities;
• financial objectives;
• stakeholders;
• and the problem you identified.

Possible criteria include:

• profitability;
• revenue growth;
• market share;
• ROI;
• customer satisfaction;
• brand strength;
• capability requirements;
• risk;
•  speed of implementation;
• employee impact;
• safety;
• environmental impact;
• flexibility.

The Decision Criteria Test

• For every criterion, ask: Why does this matter to this organisation?
• Then: Can we actually compare the alternatives against it?
• Finally: Does it connect to the problem we are trying to solve?

If not, reconsider the criterion.

The Alternative Evaluation

Your comparison might look like:

Decision Criterion	Alternative A	Alternative B	Alternative C
Strategic fit	High	Medium	High
Financial impact	High	High	Medium
Capability fit	Medium	High	Low
Risk	Medium	Low	High
Implementation speed	High	Medium	Low
Overall	Best	Strong	Weak

The purpose is not to make the table look sophisticated. The purpose is to make your logic visible. The judge should be able to see: Why this alternative wins.