How to sell a bad idea (at work)

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Presenting a sound idea is easy. The presenter only needs to identify the audience's background knowledge, organize evidence in a coherant manner, and make a concise but convincing presentation.

Alas! A lowly employee like me isn't always so lucky to get the easy assignment. My boss has ordered me to lure middle management into adopting a financial strategy. Based on historical data and mechanical analysis, this strategy does not hold too much of a promise. What's the saving grace? This strategy hasn't been attempted before, and it might surprise us. Personally I won't bet $ on it, but my boss and I need this proposal in order to justify our salaries. Otherwise, upper management will eventually question our diligence at work.

Among the audience in the middle management, there are

1) People who judge an idea by the confidence/enthusiasm of the presenter. They are like the average voters in America, whose votes are more easily influenced by rhetorics than by logic. Show some impressive results from computer simulation (based on some crappy model or assumptions), and they will buy in to it.

2) Really smart people who can tell a shitty idea even before I finish my sentence, but actually don't mind keeping their mouths shut. They are too lofty to give a damn about dumb people doing dumb things ( as long as they are not personally impacted by the effects)

3) Skeptics. They question every minor (and unimportant) details. They don't like risks. They want everything to be planned out in advance. They want the option to abandon the strategy if things don't go exactly as predicted. Oh, did I mention they want double-blind trial before every small decision?

My first though is to give separate presentation to each group. Get support from the first group by some impressive SIMULATED data. For the geeks (second group), I will just focus on entertainment. Present some interesting but somewhat irrelevant trivias to keep them from falling asleep. It's not like they care about the proposal anyway--there isn't any ground-breaking idea in it to arouse their academic interest. They will leave me alone as far as the proposal is concerned. Now for the third group (the doubters ) I will give as little information as I can manage. Keep everything abstract. Providing details only serve to give them ammo to complain to upper management.

I know you guys are more experienced in life than I am. I would appreicate your insight and comment. Thank you.
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