Complex Strategic Choices

Effective decision making requires a clear methodology, particularly in complex, globally relevant situations. Institutions and companies in all disciplines and sectors are faced with increasingly multi-faceted areas of uncertainty which cannot always be effectively handled by traditional strategies. Complex Strategic Choices provides clear principles and methods which can guide and support strategic decision to face modern challenges.

By considering ways in which planning practices can be renewed and exploring the possibilities for acquiring awareness and tools to add value to strategic decision making, Complex Strategic Choices presents a methodology which is further illustrated by a number of case studies and example applications. Dr. Techn. Steen Leleur has adapted previously established research based on feedback and input from various conferences, journals and students resulting in new material stemming from and focusing on practical application of systemic planning. The outcome is a coherent and flexible approach named systemic planning.

The inclusion of both the theoretical and practical aspects of systemic planning makes this book a key resource for researchers and students in the field of planning and decision analysis as well as practitioners dealing with strategic analysis and decision making. More broadly, Complex Strategic Choices acts as guide for professionals and students involved in complex planning tasks across several fields such as business and engineering.

• Planning Case Studies
• Planning Theory
• Strategic Decision Making
• Systemic Planning
• Systems Theory
• Engineering Economics
• complexity

Elah Matt, Transport Reviews:

"Overall, the book provides a well-conceived theoretical and empirical account of the systemic planning process. This approach can inform strategic decision-making by accounting for both quantitative and qualitative considerations. Systemic planning can therefore prove to be valuable for scholars and practitioners in a variety of disciplines, including transport studies." (Elah Matt, Transport Reviews, Vol 32 (6), Novmeber, 2012)

Amazon.com review:

Amazon.com: 4.0 out of 5 stars

Very helpful for public works project selection and evaluation

 7 Dec 2013

By Eric Bruun - Published on Amazon.com

The title doesn’t really tell the prospective reader enough to decide whether this book requires a closer inspection. If you are concerned with designing, evaluating or selecting major public works projects that can have a wide impact across a community for many years to come, this book is for you. It addresses the need to have additional tools available besides the conventional monetary cost-benefit analysis. The author and his team at the Technical University of Denmark have incorporated risk, non-monetizable costs and benefits, and relative importance of project goals into their pathbreaking methods. This book provides both a theoretical discussion of what a more full decision making process should look like and explains some practical tools that they have already developed to help move in this direction. It also provides examples from some actual multicriteria analyses recently performed in Scandinavia. I highly recommend it.

Eric Bruun, Aalto University Dept of Civiland Environmental Engineering.

• Department of Transport, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

  Steen Leleur

Steen Leleur is professor of decision support systems and planning at DTU Transport at the Technical University of Denmark - DTU. He is an experienced transport planner, who has participated in numerous activities especially in the fields of national and international strategic transport planning studies, transport investment planning, road project appraisals and road project priority scheme studies. Steen Leleur has worked out, among other things, several textbooks such as “Road Infrastructure Planning - A Decision Oriented Approach” published in 2000 by Polyteknisk, Second Edition and “Systemic Planning – Principles and Methodology for Planning in a Complex World”, Second Edition, published in 2008 also by Polyteknisk. A main research interest has been planning and appraisal of European infrastructure.

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