IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orinte/v25y1995i3p81-87.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Creativity in MS/OR: Managing the Process of Formulating the Problem

Author

Listed:
  • Roger J. Volkema

    (Kogod College of Business Administration, American University, Washington, DC 20016)

Abstract

The role of problem formulation in creative problem solving is often overlooked in MS/OR training and practice. In our rush to develop techniques for solving problems, we accept initial formulations as givens, fail to fully explore the boundaries of the problem, and shorten the creative process by making a premature evaluation. Finding opportunities rather than simply solving the problem-as-given is the real challenge. To do this we must understand the importance of formulating problems and know the techniques for managing the process (Evans [Evans, J. R. 1991. Creative Thinking in the Decision and Management Sciences . South-Western, Cincinnati, Ohio.]).

Suggested Citation

  • Roger J. Volkema, 1995. "Creativity in MS/OR: Managing the Process of Formulating the Problem," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 25(3), pages 81-87, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:25:y:1995:i:3:p:81-87
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.25.3.81
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.25.3.81
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/inte.25.3.81?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. S. R. Singhvi & Rajat Gera, 2005. "Problem Formulation and Categorization: An Empirical Study of Marketing Problems in an Organization," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 30(2), pages 121-138, May.
    2. Olivia Benfeldt & John Stouby Persson & Sabine Madsen, 2020. "Data Governance as a Collective Action Problem," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 299-313, April.
    3. Olivia Benfeldt & John Stouby Persson & Sabine Madsen, 0. "Data Governance as a Collective Action Problem," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-15.
    4. R Volkema, 2009. "Natural language and the art and science of problem/opportunity formulation: a transportation planning case analysis," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(10), pages 1360-1372, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:25:y:1995:i:3:p:81-87. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.