OR/MS Today - February 1998 - Was it Something I said?

February 1998

Was it Something I said?:
Playing a Big Role in the Big Tent

By Vijay Mehrotra

Welcome. A new column. Abstract: a cross between George Will, George Dantzig and George Carlin. That is, a thoughtful (albeit partisan) look at operations research and management science delivered in a humorous tone bordering on the cynical.

Turns out that I've got an agenda, an attitude and a perspective on the whole OR/MS thing. So do you. That should give us something to talk about. I hope/expect that I'll stir some of you to consider your work and your world in different ways and possibly cause you to change the way that you think. To do this, I'll have to take some risks. That's OK. In fact, if some of you don't disagree and get angry with what I've written, I'll feel like I've failed. I expect that some of you will offer comments and criticisms. I look forward to this. In fact, I can hardly wait.

Here we go.

"What the hell is OR/MS, anyway?" Do you get this question? I do. All the time. Make no mistake about it: people do not know. If you asked any statistically significant cross-section of the population what an operations research professional does for a living, the most frequently given answers (FGAs) would be:

The guy with the broom and the keys attached to his belt?
The woman who keeps our computer running?
I have no idea. Is this a psychology experiment?

That these FGAs all end with a question mark is insightful, because as a profession we have a knack for creating more questions than answers.

The main reason that the question of "What are you people good for anyway?" gets asked is because for the last 50 years we have positioned ourselves as a stand-alone system in an increasingly networked world. We have cloistered ourselves in separate departments and groups instead of getting intimate with people responsible for the important problems. We have plunged ahead boldly with increasing abstraction, inexplicable isolation, and not coincidentally decreasing relevance.

Wait. Put down the razor blade. All is not lost. Indeed, there is a growing slice of the world that wants to learn to analyze and optimize — or to at least do a better job attacking its business problems. History teaches us that if the stakes are high enough, people will find some twisted path to the cosmic INFORMS Web page to seek assistance (consider the way that quantitative methods have become a standard part of the investment business and the airline industry).

But the vast majority of people aren't loading "operations research" into their day-to-day search engines. Instead, they are looking for people and tools to help them attack messy, dynamic problems. Given the involuted OR mindset, it is little surprise that we have in the past not stood out as allies.

Understand: an OR/MS pedigree does not by itself mean anything to the rest of the world, while a willingness to work with people to learn about their key issues — combined with strong analytic training — truly does. Only with this mindset can we hope to innovate and adapt our beloved methods and techniques to the complexity of the world today.

If you subscribe to this point of view, you'll spend a lot less time reading esoteric papers and hacking complicated code and a lot more time gaining a meaningful understanding of semiconductor manufacturing, software marketing, call center management, or whatever.

There's a downside to this approach. It's scary out there, walking among the masses, interacting with people who speak different languages and have never been exposed to Greek letters or partial derivatives. It requires a willingness to listen carefully, synthesize what you hear and present your own ideas clearly and simply. You need to sell yourself, your methods and your profession almost all the time. It can be extremely frustrating.

The upside, however, is huge. With commitment and a little luck, you'll discover that your newly developed understanding of real problems can be very potent when combined with your ability to formulate problems in the midst of too much data, too much confusion and too much history (or not enough data, not enough resources, and not enough time). Once formulated, these problems can often be attacked by common sense and/or quantitative methods. Through this process, you may actually get to feel the real satisfaction of impacting the "bottom line."

And real people don't bite. Most successful people know they don't have all the answers, and many of them are not averse to being shown ways to improve. Some will even appreciate your efforts and express that at a personal level. There's also money to be made.

My bottom line: in a world of increasing computing power, mountains of raw data, and increasingly complex decisions and issues, OR/MS people have a tremendous opportunity to be major players in shaping how things are done. We can begin to remove the question marks that the world hurls at our profession every day. It can also be a lot of fun to learn, to teach, and to provide something that can't be replaced easily.

The only way to get a big role in this circus is to take a deep breath and go into the big tent with open eyes, open ears, and open minds.

Alternately, you can stay out there in the woods, making the traditional OR/MS brand of strange music, hoping for an audience for your tiny little sideshow. But it's going to get harder and harder to survive on your own in the wilderness. And soon there will hardly be anyone with the time, the willingness or the perspective to listen to those complaints. You see, everybody else has real problems to deal with.

Vijay Mehrotra is the CEO of Onward, an operations management consulting firm in Mountain Viwe, Calif. He holds a Ph. D. in operations reasearch from Stanford University

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