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Brigham and Women's Hospital is a highly successful teaching hospital in 1992. However, the hospital sector is undergoing a major transition and the hospital faces uncertainty about changing demographic trends, new types of competitors, and technological and scientific change. It's premier OB service is declining, and many of the hospital leaders are nearing retirement. How should it craft its strategy for the 1990s?

Describes McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc.'s competitive position in 1990. McCaw is the largest cellular phone service company in the United States. It faces challenges of technological change and formulating strategy in an industry with a highly uncertain future. Focuses on a strategic investment in one of two new technologies for switches. Raises the general question of how one chooses among two uncertain technologies. The tension arises from potential first-mover advantages, from network effects of the currently available technology, and the promise of a superior technology soon to be available.

Managers often ignore uncertainty and plan as if the world were certain. Frequently, strategy is formulated based on an extrapolation of current trends into the future, or the best guess scenario of the manager involved. This note discusses four approaches to shaping the firm's response to uncertainty. The first half discusses using scenario analysis to better understand how the future may evolve. The second half discusses how to use this understanding in formulating a strategic response to uncertainty. Discusses bets, "robust" choices, choices of timing, and "changing the rules."

The uncertainty and complexity of most business environments make successful management a difficult art. Frequently, bright, experienced, well-educated people manage their companies into strategic distress. Many of these bad results are not simply a matter of bad luck. This note discusses problems caused by cognitive biases and heuristics (ways of thinking about problems) that managers commonly use when analyzing strategy under uncertainty. Shows where these problems are likely to arise in strategy analysis and discusses five practices that help to mitigate the biases.

The desktop printer industry in 1990 is characterized by significant uncertainty about new technologies and about the types of features customers may demand in the next decade. The case looks at the positions of Hewlett-Packard, Canon, Kodak, Xerox, and IBM enabling students to consider different approaches competing firms may take to manage strategic risks in a rapidly changing, high technology industry.

Focuses on Pennzoil's motor oil business. Designed to address the business strategy issues of how a firm chooses its scope to create competitive advantage in its core business. "Scope" can be broadly defined to include vertical scope (forward and backward integration), horizontal scope (multiple related products), and geographic scope (multiple market locations).