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The Swedish Fund for Nuclear Waste Handling and Total Nuclear Clearance aims to pay for the final decommissioning of the existing nuclear power plants as well as the permanent waste disposal solution. The Swedish National Nuclear Inspectorate, SKI, is responsible for proposing the correct size of the fee per kWh to be paid by all nuclear power plants. The Successive Principle has been implemented since 1996 in order to handle the severe embedded uncertainties efficiently, including the expected future revenues of the existing fund.
A European working group in the telecoms industry was asked to evaluate the potential business advantage resulting from a new and more environmentally-friendly strategy. Four analyses were performed under various societal and business conditions in the interests of achieving comprehensive conclusions. These analyses were performed over a few day-long sessions with 16 participants from 11 European countries.
A major hi-tech project in a medium-sized Scandinavian industrial company is more or less directed at a single customer. This exposure is considered strategically dangerous for the company.
The potential of a strategic change was analysed. It consisted of directing the project and its technology more consciously toward the international market and less toward the specific existing local national customer. Over a four-day period, a 20-person management group performed the analysis of the potential outcome of both the existing strategy and the proposed new strategy. A ranked list of the most important aspects was considered to be a highly important spin-off.
The authorities responsible for a hi-tech defence programme wanted to verify the actual expected final overrun in order to support negotiations for restructuring the project. An analysis verified the project sponsors’ feelings about the project situation.
A large Scandinavian public organisation is undergoing major reorganisation due to the requirements for increased efficiency. Coupled with project management principles, the Successive Principle is considered to be capable of playing a decisive role in implementing the fundamental changes needed. Two difficult internal matters of contention, which had blocked important relocation projects for some years, were chosen as tests and subjected to successive analyses. Full consensus was reached in the first case after only two days of group analysis with the parties involved. In the second and more difficult case, after two days the parties came close to final consensus, agreeing on two main alternatives (out of a previous nine) to be submitted to senior management for a final decision. A year later a third problematic case was brought to a successful resolution.
A telephone company was gradually entering a competitive environment, very different from the monopoly it had hitherto enjoyed. Four of the regional divisions therefore analysed the potential commercial strength and profitability of their long-range plans and their alternatives. Furthermore, they identified and ranked not only their positive strategic potentials but also their threats. A few years later an implementation process was decided on and has now been implemented in one major region.
The plan for a 15-year programme for a series of de luxe cruise liners was the relevant company’s attempt to establish “a third arm” to its activities. The profitability of the overall programme, including all sorts of uncertainty factors, was estimated. The potential effect of terrorism on cruise liners was included, in spite of the fact that at that time it had never occurred. As the reader may know, it actually occurred later. The first phase of the programme was then launched. Unfortunately, the management did not protect itself against some of the major threats identified by the analysis. These happened to materialise, and inflicted such severe commercial damage on the first phase of the programme that the programme was abandoned. A few years later, a recession confirmed the reliability of the results of the analysis.
About Dr. Steen Lichtenberg