Implementation Exchange: Self-Starters in MS/OR—A Growth Area

There has been much discussion about the future of MS/OR and about how MS/OR ought to change if it is to survive and prosper. But in general the literature speaks for MS/OR practitioners, rather than the subject itself, and there has been some evidence that MS/OR is no longer contained within the profession.

In a recent survey of 100 managers about 50 percent stated that they had used OR, and 20 percent of this group had done it themselves. It is this latter phenomenon that interests us here; we will call them “self-starters.”