Part V

PART V: Developing Alternatives

Once the team understands the problem and has developed meaningful insights, the next question is: What could the organisation actually do? This is where many case solutions become weaker. Teams often jump from analysis directly to a favourite idea. They find something interesting, decide they like it, and then spend the rest of the case trying to prove that it is the right answer. Strong case solving works differently.

A recommendation becomes more credible when the team can demonstrate that it considered credible alternatives, established appropriate criteria for comparison, and selected the option that best fits the organisation's situation. Part V focuses on two critical skills:

1. Developing meaningful alternatives

2. Creating decision criteria that allow those alternatives to be compared

The objective is not to create more ideas. It is to create better choices. 

Chapter 8: Alternatives Are Not a Buffet

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

A common mistake in case competitions is to create three or four random ideas and then select the one the team likes best. That isn't strategic decision-making. A strong alternative should emerge from the analysis. Your analysis has identified:

• the problem;

• the underlying causes;

• the organisation's objectives;

• its capabilities;

• its constraints;

• its opportunities;

• and the risks it faces.

Your alternatives should respond to those findings. Think of the progression as:

ANALYSIS → INSIGHTS → ALTERNATIVES → EVALUATION → RECOMMENDATION

The alternatives are the bridge between understanding the problem and making the decision.

What Makes a Strong Alternative?

A strong alternative should be:

Realistic

The organisation could actually pursue it. It fits the organisation's:

• resources;

• market;

• capabilities;

• financial position;

• regulatory environment;

• and strategic situation.

Implementable

The organisation could execute it. You should be able to explain:

• who would do it;

• what resources are required;

• what capabilities are needed;

• how long it would take;

• and what major dependencies exist.

Meaningfully Different

The alternatives should represent genuinely different choices. Changing the wording of essentially the same strategy does not create three alternatives. For example:

• Increase marketing by 10%;

• Increase marketing by 15%;

• Increase marketing by 20%.

These are different levels of the same decision, not necessarily three distinct strategic alternatives. Instead, consider alternatives such as: 

• deepen the existing market;

• enter a new market;

• develop a new product;

• pursue a partnership;

• acquire an existing capability.

The alternatives create different strategic paths.

MECE Alternatives

A useful principle for developing alternatives is MECE: Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive.

Mutually Exclusive

The alternatives should be meaningfully different from one another. If Alternative A and Alternative B could be combined without changing the strategic choice, they may not actually be separate alternatives.

Collectively Exhaustive

Together, the alternatives should cover the reasonable strategic choices available to the organisation. You do not need to identify every conceivable possibility. You need to identify the important and realistic choices.

Alternatives Should Come From the Analysis

Your alternatives should not appear out of nowhere. For example:

Analysis

The company has strong brand recognition but limited digital capabilities.

Insight

The organisation has an opportunity to grow digitally but lacks the internal capability to quickly build the required platform. This could lead to alternatives such as:

• Alternative A — Build
  • Develop the capability internally.
• Alternative B — Buy
  • Acquire an organisation that already possesses the capability.
• Alternative C — Partner
  • Work with an external organisation to access the capability.

Now the alternatives emerge logically from the analysis. That makes the eventual recommendation easier to defend.

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. But this does not demonstrate strategic thinking. A straw-man alternative is intentionally weak so that the preferred option appears superior. Judges can often see this immediately. Strong alternatives should all be credible choices. Your recommendation should win because it is superior against meaningful criteria—not because the other options were designed to lose.

The Alternative Quality Test

Before evaluating your alternatives, ask:

1. Is this realistic? Could the organisation actually do this?
2. Is this implementable? Could the organisation execute it with available or attainable resources?
3. Is it strategically relevant? Does it address the problem we identified?
4. Is it meaningfully different? Does it represent a genuinely different strategic choice?
5. Does our analysis support it? Can we explain where the alternative came from?
6. Would a reasonable executive consider it? If management would never seriously consider the option, it probably does not belong in the final comparison.

Alternatives Are Choices, Not Ideas

There is an important distinction between an idea and an alternative. 

• An idea might be to launch a social media campaign.
• An alternative is broader: Invest in digital customer acquisition to rebuild the company's customer base.

The alternative describes a strategic choice. The social media campaign may then become one of the tactics used to execute that choice. This distinction matters because case competitions are usually asking: What should management do? not: What interesting idea could management try?

Discover Your Mad Skills Principle

Don't create alternatives to fill a slide. Create alternatives to create a real decision.

The purpose of alternatives is to make the choice meaningful.

The Bottom Line

Alternatives Are Not a Buffet

• Alternatives should emerge from your analysis rather than from a brainstorming exercise disconnected from the problem.
• Each alternative should represent a credible strategic choice the organisation could realistically pursue.
• Strong alternatives are:
• realistic;
• implementable;
• meaningfully different;
• connected to the problem;
• supported by analysis.
• Where appropriate, alternatives should be MECE: Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive.
• Do not create a straw-man alternative to make your preferred recommendation look stronger.
• If one alternative is obviously ridiculous, comparing it adds little credibility to your decision.
• Judges should see that the recommendation won against credible competition.

Your recommendation should win because it is the strongest choice, not because you deliberately created weak alternatives.

Chapter 9: Decision Criteria

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

Once you have developed credible alternatives, you need a way to compare them. This is where decision criteria become important. Decision criteria are the standards you use to determine which alternative is best. They answer the question:

“What makes one option better than another for this organisation?”

Without clear criteria, teams often select the alternative they personally prefer. With strong criteria, the recommendation becomes a logical consequence of the analysis.

Criteria Should Come From the Case

Do not choose criteria simply because they sound impressive. The criteria should connect directly to the organisation's:

• mission;

• strategy;

• objectives;

• capabilities;

• financial position;

• stakeholders;

• values;

• constraints;

• and the problem you identified.

For example, if the organisation's central challenge is declining profitability, appropriate criteria might include:

• financial impact;

• implementation cost;

• speed to impact;

• risk;

• capability requirements.

If the organisation is a not-for-profit, however, financial return may not be the dominant criterion. You might instead prioritise:

• social impact;

• reach;

• stakeholder impact;

• mission alignment;

• sustainability;

• funding requirements.

The criteria must reflect what matters to this organisation.

Common Decision Criteria

Depending on the case, useful criteria may include:

• Strategic Fit: Does the alternative support the organisation's strategy and objectives?
• Financial Impact: Does it improve revenue, profit, cash flow, value, or return?
• Customer Impact: Will it improve customer acquisition, retention, satisfaction, experience, or lifetime value?
• Capability Fit: Does the organisation have the necessary skills, technology, infrastructure, and resources?
• Risk: What could go wrong, and how significant would the consequences be?
• Implementation Speed: How quickly can the organisation execute the alternative and begin getting results?
• Stakeholder Impact: How will employees, customers, investors, suppliers, communities, regulators, or other stakeholders be affected?
• Flexibility: Can the organisation adapt or reverse the decision if circumstances change?
• Sustainability: Does the alternative create long-term value without creating unacceptable environmental or social consequences?

The Decision Criteria Test

Before using a criterion, ask three questions.

1. Why does this matter? Can you explain why this criterion is important to this organisation?
2. Can we compare the alternatives? Can you actually assess the alternatives against the criterion?
3. Does it connect to the problem? Does the criterion help determine whether the organisation is solving the problem identified in the case?

If the answer is no, reconsider the criterion.

Avoid the Criteria Trap

Teams sometimes create too many criteria. A comparison might contain:

• strategic fit;

• financial impact;

• revenue growth;

• profit growth;

• ROI;

• NPV;

• customer satisfaction;

• employee satisfaction;

• brand impact;

• sustainability;

• risk;

• implementation;

• flexibility;

• scalability;

• feasibility;

• innovation.

The result looks sophisticated. But it may actually make the decision less clear. Some criteria overlap. For example:

• Financial impact
• ROI
• NPV
• Profitability
• Revenue growth

These may all be useful, but they should not automatically receive equal and independent weight. The objective is not to create the longest possible list.

The objective is to identify the few criteria that genuinely determine the decision.

Comparing Alternatives

Once the criteria have been established, compare the alternatives. For example:

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 of this table is not to make the presentation look sophisticated. Its purpose is to make your decision logic visible. The judge should be able to see: Why does this alternative win?

Make the Criteria Matter

The best comparison tables do not simply assign ratings. They explain the reasoning behind them. For example:

• Alternative A — High financial impact
  • Because the initiative is expected to increase annual operating profit by $8 million.
• Alternative B — Medium capability fit
  • Because the organisation has some of the required capabilities but would need to hire additional technical expertise.
• Alternative C — High risk
  • Because the strategy requires significant upfront investment before demand has been proven.

The rating is not the insight. The reason behind the rating is.

Weighted Criteria

Sometimes different criteria have different levels of importance. For example:

Criterion	Weight
Financial impact	30%
Strategic fit	25%
Capability fit	20%
Risk	15%
Implementation speed	10%

You can then score each alternative against the criteria and calculate a weighted score. This can be useful when:

• the decision is complex;

• several alternatives are genuinely competitive;

• criteria have different levels of importance;

• and the assumptions behind the scoring can be defended.

But do not use weighted scoring simply because Excel makes it possible. A mathematical score does not automatically make a decision objective. The quality of the decision still depends on:

• the criteria selected;

• the weights assigned;

• the evidence used;

• and the assumptions behind the scores.

The Recommendation Should Emerge From the Comparison

A strong decision process creates a logical sequence:

Problem --> Objectives --> Analysis --> Insights --> Alternatives --> Decision Criteria --> Evaluation --> Recommendation

This is important. The recommendation should not feel like it appeared at the end of the presentation. The judges should be able to follow the logic and reach the same conclusion. That is what makes a recommendation persuasive.

Don't Force the Matrix

A decision matrix is a useful tool, but it is not always necessary. If one alternative is clearly superior based on a critical issue, a simple comparison may be enough. For example: Alternative A requires a $20 million investment and produces a negative NPV. If the organisation's objective is to create financial value and the assumptions are credible, you may not need a ten-criterion scoring model to explain why the alternative should be rejected. Again: Use the tool that improves the decision. Not the tool that makes the analysis look complicated.

The Recommendation Test

Before finalising your recommendation, ask:

• Can we explain why this alternative wins? If not, revisit the criteria.
• Are the criteria important to this organisation? If not, change them.
• Are the alternatives genuinely credible? If not, improve them.
• Is the evidence behind the comparison strong? If not, do more analysis.
• Would the recommendation change if an important assumption changed? If yes, test the sensitivity.
• Can the judges follow the logic? If not, simplify the comparison.

Discover Your Mad Skills Principle

The best recommendation is not the option you like most. It is the option that best satisfies the criteria that matter most to the organisation.

Decision criteria turn preference into judgment.

The Bottom Line

Decision Criteria

• Decision criteria define what matters when choosing between alternatives.
• Criteria should emerge from:
• the problem;
• organisational strategy;
• mission and values;
• capabilities;
• financial objectives;
• stakeholders;
• constraints.
• Possible criteria include financial return, strategic fit, risk, capability fit, speed, customer impact, employee impact, flexibility, and sustainability.
• Avoid generic criteria that could be applied to virtually any case without explanation.
• For every criterion, ask:

Why does this matter to this organisation in this situation?

• Criteria should allow meaningful differentiation between alternatives.
• Weighting criteria can be useful when some considerations matter more than others, but the weighting should be defensible.
• A decision matrix does not decide for you. It makes your decision logic visible.
• The final recommendation should remain consistent with the analysis and criteria that preceded it.

Don't use decision criteria to justify a decision you already made. Use them to help make the decision.

Mad Skills Drill

Using a case you have analysed, develop three alternatives. Each must be:

• realistic;
• implementable;
• meaningfully different;
• supported by analysis.

Then apply the Straw-Man Test. For each alternative, assign one team member to argue: "Why could this genuinely be the best choice?"

They have 60 seconds. If nobody can make a credible argument for an alternative, reconsider whether it belongs.

Now select 3–5 decision criteria. For every criterion, answer: Why does this matter to this organisation and this problem? Evaluate all three alternatives. But before calculating any overall result, have each teammate independently predict which option should win. Compare the result with the matrix.

Finally ask: Did our analysis determine the winner, or did we design the criteria to make our favourite idea win? Your recommendation should defeat credible alternatives.