In the previous section, we stated that anybody who is proficient in process management of almost always will be confronted with a dilemma:

On the one hand, anyone active in a network environment will need to make use of the strategies mentioned in order to achieve his or her interests.

On the other hand, anyone who continually uses these strategies can eventually be seen as unreliable.

To explore this dilemma in more detail, we will first look at a case study.

Case Study Exercise:

A large industrial company has an R&D department. Every two years, R&D compiles a plan and puts it to the company board. 

The R&D staff have attended a two-day workshop on compiling the plan for the next two years. Everyone is enthusiastic about the plan. R&D proposes several innovations that can be marketed quickly and could prove extremely profitable.

At the end of the two days, a calculation is made of how much budget is required for the plans. The result: 100.

The director of the R&D department then enters into negotiations with the company’s CFO. He gives a presentation of the plans and outlines the budget that he needs – asking for 120. After several rounds of negotiations, he ultimately gets 102.

Several weeks later, one of the staff in the department is chatting to the CFO at a reception and mentions that, during the two-day workshop, a calculation was made of the budget required and it was 100.

The CFO now knows that R&D needed 100 but asked for 120.