Speaker: Dr. Steve Barrager
Presentation Slides: “Saving the Corvette: A Case Study in Strategic Decision Making”
Meeting Date: Thursday, April 6, 2017
Time: 6:00 pm Networking; 6:30 pm Management Forum/Guided Networking;
          7:00 pm sandwich dinner; 7:30 pm Presentation
Earlybird: $12 IEEE members, $15 non-members; At the Door: $5 more
Location: AMD Commons Building / AMD Campus, Sunnyvale, CA
Directions: click map at right
Reservations: tems1704.eventbrite.com

 
SUMMARY
Management Forum / Guided Networking: Bring Your Management Challenge;
Arrive by 6:30 PM to join this exciting Management Forum. Following informal
networking is a guided discussion typically related to the topic of the evening’s
after dinner talk, or of general Technology Management interest.
Light Dinner: This month we’re continuing with our light dinner format
— typically sandwiches, salad, drinks, and cookie or similar light dinner.

Presentation: Saving the Corvette: A Case Study in Strategic Decision Making
Imagine that the situation is grim; sales are declining; quality is poor; the competition is resurgent; leadership is slim; and disagreement abounds. Come hear how improved strategic decision making saved an iconic brand, and earned the highest accolades.

Speaker Bio:
Steve Barrager is a pioneer in developing the profession of strategic decision coaching. He works with teams in Fortune 500 companies, research institutes, and government. He lectures on decision making in organizations and environmental decision making at Stanford University. He is currently writing about the science and engineering of organizational decisions.

He was Chair of the Science Advisory Team and a member of the Leadership Team for the California Marine Life Protection Act Initiative. He has had several appointments with the Pacific Fishery Management Council (the body that regulates fishing on the West Coast). He was affiliated with the Environmental Policy Program in the Stanford Law School.

Previously he was a Director and Board member at Strategic Decisions Group (SDG) in Palo Alto, California. During his years with SDG, Barrager led a major eight-year engagement with General Motors. The goal of the program was to upgrade strategic decision-making throughout the company. The range of major decision areas included business innovation, product planning, branding, marketing and sales strategy, global sourcing strategy, R&D planning, and environmental strategy. The results of most of this work are embodied in the “New GM.” While working at GM in 1994, Barrager supervised the writing of the “Decision Coach’s Guide to the Dialog Decision Process.”

Barrager has worked in a wide variety of business sectors: aerospace, computer, automobile, chemical, electronics, mining, transportation, food, and energy. He has facilitated many senior executive workshops and taught strategic decision making and R&D planning to executives. He has led multidisciplinary, multinational teams in Asia, Europe, South America, and the Middle East.

Before graduate school Barrager was an advanced manufacturing engineer on the the IBM 360 computer program. He has two patents for thin-film magnetic head
Right out of college Barrager was a control systems engineer on the Apollo Project. He and colleagues determined the feasibility of a lunar rendezvous.

He is a member of INFORMS, IEEE, the Long Now Foundation, and a Fellow of the Society for Decision Professionals.

Barrager earned a Ph.D. Degree at Stanford University from the Management Science and Engineering Department (formerly Engineering-Economic Systems) in 1975. Decision analysis was his research focus while at Stanford. He was the lead teaching assistant for the probability and decision analysis course sequence. His undergraduate work was in systems engineering at Northwestern University. He is a member of Pi Tau Sigma, the national mechanical engineering honorary fraternity.

Dr. Barrager has many publications and invited presentations. For a more complete background, please see his website at – https://bakerstreetpublishing.com/publisher/