Executives faced with the need to manage an ever-growing portfolio of alliances are scrambling to learn from the experiences and best-practices of others. One way to do so is to attend a workshop on alliance management, such as the one offered in Boston periodically by Brandeis University.

For some, a longer course on the topic may be more useful. As an example, see the Alliance Strategy course taught at Brandeis University's International Business School; it is geared to MBA-level students, but much of it is appropriate for more experienced students in executive education programs. This is a survey course covering all key aspects of alliance strategy and management. Among the topics covered are:

• The role of alliances in competitive strategy
• Designing alliances, including choice of partner and of structure
• Managing alliances over their lifetime
• Competing in multi-firm "constellations" and networks
• Organizational challenges of managing constellations of allies

See syllabus of MBA course on Alliance Strategy

The readings consist of case studies, articles, and book chapters that are all widely available. (The HBS cases ad HBR articles are available from Harvard Business School Publishing.) Most of the classes are intended to be taught by the discussion method. Each class is designed to last between 1 and 2 hours. Detailed assignment questions are not included here, but are frequently useful.