PRESIDENT'S DESK
Public sector O.R. & analytics
INFORMS President
Rina Schneur
I am honored, challenged and excited to start my presidency term. The past year as president-elect prepared me well for the presidency, thanks in part to the great help of immediate past presidents Susan Albin and Don Kleinmuntz, as well as the INFORMS staff. The structure that provides a president three years to serve on the INFORMS Board as president-elect, president and past-president works out well and assures the gradual introduction to the role of president, as well as continuation of momentum.
As a “side project” during the past year, I pursued an effort of disseminating more O.R. – and analytics – within the public sector. It began coincidentally before I was elected president-elect when I came across a talk a representative of the Clinton Foundation gave at the 2008 Spring INFORMS Conference. I approached the organization to explore if or how the Clinton Foundation and its beneficiaries use quantitative methods and what led the Foundation to INFORMS. I subsequently learned that while many nonprofit organizations may want to utilize quantitative methods, they do not because, for the most part, they have neither the tools nor the means to get there. I also learned that most nonprofits are not familiar with INFORMS and its members and what we do.
Therefore, last year I formed a taskforce to look into disseminating analytics into the public sector, specifically, the government and non-profit organizations. Led by Michael Johnson (government and public), Julie Swan (humanitarian and non-profit) and Les Servi (Department of Defense-DoD), the taskforce’s mission is to “substantially increase the awareness and contributions of O.R./analytics to government agencies and non-profit organizations.”
The project was initially prompted by a growing awareness and interest by non-profits in using advanced quantitative methods, as evidenced by the Clinton Foundation’s appearance at the INFORMS conference. Since then, interactions the taskforce has had with non-profits has cemented the notion that these agencies are collecting lots of data – very good data. However, for the most part, they don’t know what to do with it in order to gain insight and guide decisions. This is where we come in.
Some of the prominent agencies the taskforce has connected with so far include the Office of Management and Budget (we met with OMB senior leaders at the White House last summer) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). During internal and external discussions we have contemplated how to establish an interaction between INFORMS and its members and the various agencies. The interaction can take various forms, each with its own challenges. For example, do we provide hands-on training or training material? Do we facilitate work engagements such as sabbaticals within those agencies? Do we provide a list of experts for them to use and contact? Which agencies should we pursue first, especially as we need to establish a record of success?
We have already established a project team and continue to meet with OMB as we pursue some of these ideas. We are looking to interact similarly with the DoD, and we’re working on facilitating contacts between INFORMS members and humanitarian/NP organizations. All of these are challenging goals, but we need to start somewhere, and the time is ripe to establish a solid analytical track record. If we are successful, our achievements can also provide a great public relations campaign for INFORMS.
Not only has this been a timely effort from the perspective of the agencies’ readiness, but the effort fits very well with the “analytics” initiative INFORMS has launched. For example, when we met with the OMB, we referred to the three stages of data collection and quantitative methods INFORMS now uses when describing analytics: descriptive (to gain insight of the past); predictive (to gain understanding of potential future outcomes) and prescriptive (to suggest actions to take for improvement). The notion of these three phases immediately resonated with the OMB leaders we met with, and the discussion moved on to talking about which agencies are in which phase (they are mostly ready for the predictive phase).
Analytics and the dissemination of it within the public sector will come together at the spring INFORMS conference in Chicago as well. INFORMS has rebranded it the “INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research,” and plans include a public sector track featuring prominent speakers from DoD and other government and non-profit agencies. The goal is to make the track – and the conference – interesting and equally attractive to attendees from the public and private sectors since they share many of the fundamental analytics problems and challenges.
Finally, my intention is to make this column one of several vehicles to communicate with the INFORMS membership. I encourage all members to voice their ideas. Become an active part of INFORMS. You can start by publicizing O.R./analytics within your professional community, organizing a session at a conference, helping your local chapter, participating in a networking discussion and getting to know others and forming collaborations. As you become more involved, I am certain you will find it energizing and rewarding.
