Lessons from Experience in the Practice of Operations Research

In responding to an invitation to present a paper at EURO V, the Fifth European Congress on Operations Research, whose theme is "The Practice of Operations Research," I proposed a paper under the title "Lessons from Experience in the Practice of Operations Research" with the following abstract: "This paper follows the operations research analyst in his day-to-day work from the beginning to the end of a project, offering him advice based on the experience of other analysts. Beginning with the awareness of a problem situation, it discusses formulating the problem, gathering information about it, formulating alternatives to be considered for its possible solution, choosing modes of analysis, carrying out the analysis, formulating its findings, preparing the communication instruments, conducting the communication campaign, carrying out additional analysis of questions arising during this campaign, and following up on the results of the analysis and the decisions emerging from it. Owing to the scattered and relatively scarce literature on this subject, the paper is based largely on its author's experience, plus the experiences of others known to him." The original thought was that this paper was to be extracted from a chapter on practice that I was then writing for the forthcoming Handbook of Systems Analysis (Edward S. Quade and Hugh J. Miser, editors). However, since I made the original proposal, it has seemed more desirable to offer the entire chapter, provided the reader is willing to grant two indulgences: (1) Wherever the chapter reads "systems analysis," understand that operations research is also meant. (2) Forgive the occasional references to earlier chapters of the Handbook (which are seldom necessary to the understanding of the point being made, although they contribute to it)