A taxonomy of strategic decisions and tactics for uncovering alternatives

The study determined how decision-makers uncovered alternatives for eight frequently occurring decisions and the success that was realized. A ‘cyclical search’ in which repeated searches were carried out to learn about opportunities was successful for most of decisions, but rarely used. ‘Integrated benchmarking’, which merged useful practices and procedures from several sources, was successful for decisions about services. Design was successful when used for decisions involving products, reorganizations, and internal operations. Low effort tactics of simple benchmarking, single search, and idea were applied to nearly all of the decision types but were seldom successful. These findings will be used to suggest ways to improve practice.