Creativity in OR/MS: From Technique to Epistemology

James R. Evans has made an interesting contribution with his articles on creativity in OR/MS practice. His main conclusion is that OR/MS practitioners ought to take creativity seriously if they want to be effective problem solvers, and he has suggested a number of techniques that would help them.

In a sense, creativity has always been part of the OR/MS tradition, albeit in an embryonic form. Since its early days, for example, OR/MS has been an interdisciplinary undertaking that encouraged bringing insights from different disciplines to bear on a particular problem. Similarly, as Evans has reminded us, OR/MS theory building involves elements of creativity, although this is less related to OR/MS practice per se and more to generating new ideas and novel insights, an activity characteristic of all scientific research.