Why not see the development of businesses, and indeed of society as a whole, in a similar way, Mr Ackoff asked?

ECONOMIST: In praise of the ideas of Russ Ackoff

Ackoff also claimed that there was a more fundamental flaw to OR.

ECONOMIST: Idea

The world's four greatest statisticians never took a course in statistics, Mr Ackoff would point out, and three of America's greatest architects (Henry Hobson Richardson, Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright) never took a formal course in architecture.

ECONOMIST: In praise of the ideas of Russ Ackoff