Teaching OR/MS to MBAs at Warwick Business School: A Turnaround Story

Abstract

OR/MS is under pressure in MBA programs in the United Kingdom as it is in the United States. To ensure its continuance, members of the operational research group at Warwick Business School redesigned the core OR/MS module. The first attempt at a redesign was a failure. As a result, the module was redesigned again. The second version was a success. Through this process, we have learned many lessons about teaching OR/MS to MBA students, among them the need to have a guiding philosophy, adopt a critical-consumer approach, stress managerial relevance, discuss the context and process of modeling as well as content, and use spreadsheets for analytical work.