Welcome to this blog on operation research in software development. Operation research management focuses on the mathematical scoring of consequences of a decision aiming to optimize the use of time, effort and resources to avoid blunders. The act of obtaining best result under any given circumstances is known as optimizing. In software development the key purpose of Operation Research (OR) is to do preparative calculation that the decision-making process. Operation research methodologies can be applied in the field of product and software research & development for several purposes, such as to control and plan product introductions 

Hence, decision-making is key part of our daily life. The ultimate goal of all decision is to maximize benefits and to minimize efforts and time. OR gives decision makers the power to make effective decisions and improve day to day operations. Decision makers consider all the available option, study the outcomes, and estimate the risk.

In simple situation, common sense and judgement can be used to take decisions. For example, if you buying a laptop or software the decision making process is not very complicated. You can simply Compare the price, quality, and durability of the well-known brands and models in the market and take the decision on it 

However, in the complex situation, although it is possible to take decision based on one’s common based, a decision backed by mathematical calculations reduces the risk factor and increases the probability of success.

During the world war second, scientist from United Kingdom studied the strategic and tactical problems, associate with air and land defense of the country. The aim of this study was to determine the effective utilization of limited military resources to win the battle. The technique was named operation research. After world war second, operation research technique were developed and deployed in the decision making process in various fields, such as research & software development, product development and industrial and government organization.

Churchman defined operation research as “the application of scientific method, techniques and tools to the operation of a system with optimum solutions” where ‘optimum’ is the the best possible alternative.

The purpose of operation research is to provide a scientific method to the decision-makers for solving problems involving interaction with various component of the organization