Technical and other considerations in identifying operations research problem areas, selecting topics, and designing studies.

Problem identification and OR study topic selection are the foundations upon which the success of the entire OR process depends. Both technical and nontechnical issues impinge on these early stages of project development and must be dealt with simultaneously. This paper has proposed a set of guidelines or questions for weighing the technical considerations of OR, that is, for selecting relevant and salient problems that have competing solutions implementable through administrative action. However, it is not as easy to come up with a similar set of guiding questions for judging the nontechnical, often political considerations that usually result in compromises in project development. It may be hoped that further discussion of these issues will lead to the development of clear and useful guidelines.