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Author: Jerry Neumann

Spring 2023 Syllabus

by Jerry Neumann
This post is by Jerry Neumann from Reaction Wheel

I have always found value in other teachers’ syllabi. I was reminded of this when Henrik Berglund recently shared his excellent syllabus with me. In case anyone else feels the same, here is my current one. I last posted a syllabus four years ago. Much changed during the pandemic. Most notably—at the instigation of Noelle, […]

Trial and Error, Part 1

by Jerry Neumann
This post is by Jerry Neumann from Reaction Wheel

Uncertainty results in unpredictability, and two types of things cause unpredictability: novelty and complexity. Novelty uncertainty is when you can’t predict something because it has never been done before. You might not know know the existing conditions, all the actions you can take, how those actions might change conditions, and/or what the possible outcomes are. […]

Addressing Uncertainty, an overview

by Jerry Neumann
This post is by Jerry Neumann from Reaction Wheel

We are going to talk about building a strategy that helps you make decisions, even under uncertainty. It will help you decide which actions to take even though you won't know what the results of those actions are. You won't have a plan—something where action a leads to action b leads to action c, and so on until you inevitably (or at least statistically) reach success. Instead you will have a framework that guides you to decisions that carefully mitigate uncertainty as efficiently as possible while building a sustainable competitive advantage for the time when the uncertainty is gone and competition arrives.

Strategy under uncertainty

by Jerry Neumann
This post is by Jerry Neumann from Reaction Wheel

Every firm competing in an industry has a competitive strategy, either explicit or implicit… The emphasis being placed on strategic planning today…reflects the proposition that there are significant benefits to gain through an explicit process of formulating strategy, to insure that at least the policies (if not the actions) of functional departments are coordinated and […]

One Process

by Jerry Neumann
This post is by Jerry Neumann from Reaction Wheel

This is completely irrelevant to the current moment. Enjoy. We build models to see what the future will hold and then tailor our actions to what the models tell us. If the models are accurately predictive then great. But sometimes the models are predictive only because we do what they tell us to do. It […]

Startups and Uncertainty

by Jerry Neumann
This post is by Jerry Neumann from Reaction Wheel

I’m trying to write something longer than a blog post (‘longer?’ you say, ‘oh dear.’) and to keep myself motivated I’m breaking it up into smaller pieces and publishing them here. So this should be read in conjunction with Schumpeter on Strategy and A Taxonomy of Moats. I expect that at some point the three […]