The Art and Science of Mess Management

Russell L. Ackoff
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Russell L. Ackoff: The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Busch Center, Vance Hall CS, 3733 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104

Interfaces, 1981, vol. 11, issue 1, 20-26

Abstract: The design-oriented planner has a major responsibility for providing inputs to the planning process, in organizing and guiding it, in educating those involved in it, in specifying the nature of the output that is required, in providing criteria by which the output can be evaluated, and in facilitating such evaluation. The design-oriented planner must be competent in the use of the methods, techniques, and tools of both the clinician and the researcher. He need not be as skilled in the use of their instruments as they are, but he must know them well enough to be able to use those who have these skills effectively. He must do more than this: he must know how to design and invent, and he must be able to encourage and facilitate the efforts of others to do so. He must be a generalist who is familiar with the capabilities and limitations of relevant specialists; he must be a humanist as well as a scientist; and he must be as much at home with art as he is with technology. Finally, he must be as concerned with the qualities of life as he is with its quantities.

Keywords: professional:; OR/MS; philosophy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1981
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