OM Forum—Perspectives on Policy Modeling: 2018 MSOM Fellow Award

Policy modeling refers to the application of operations research and allied quantitative methods to model policy problems. The idea is to help make better policy choices when data are uncertain or unavailable, the time allowed for analysis is very short relative to the natural time scale of the problem, or other resources seemingly necessary for analysis are constrained. This article reviews some personal adventures in policy modeling with attention to problem introduction, the role of operations, and what happened following completion of the analysis.