ISSUE 182 : Jul/Aug - 2010 - Australian Defence Force Journal

of findings if very short time-scales are involved.While the timely reporting of the findings of Fast OR studies remains of paramount importance,there is a need also to ascertain the veracity of the underpinning S&T work that led to thefindings. One approach is to negotiate with the requestor of the work a format for thedeliverables that meets their purpose but is also matched to the time frames of the study.For shorter time frames, more formal, peer-reviewed mechanisms would then become anadditional process undertaken after the delivery of the primary findings. This should, however,be viewed as a level of redundancy necessary to assure S&T quality of the work rather than aduplication of effort.Another issue with the reporting of Fast OR studies is the format of documents produced.Scientific papers and technical reports follow set pro forma, usually established by theorganisation publishing the work. For DSTO reports, this is laid out in the ‘Style Guidefor DSTO Authors’, whereby a report or paper typically has sections such as introduction,methods, results, discussion and conclusion. For Fast OR studies, however, the sections mayhave headings such as objectives, approach, analysis, findings and recommendations to betterreflect the purpose and nature of the S&T work undertaken and the need to align the resultsdirectly with the request for S&T support. In addition to providing more clarity of purpose andfocus for S&T activities, such structure can also assist the OR practitioner to achieve brevityin reporting.The way in which the results of an OR study are written is also important. As OR studies seemincreasingly to involve tackling ill-defined problems or complex issues, which can be highlydependent on the context or involve interpretation of only a subset of all relevant information,there is a danger in making assertions, sweeping statements and unconditional findings. Itis thus important to highlight main findings but explicitly note what assumptions have beenmade and clearly state any contentious aspects along with any recommendations. Developinga suitable style for OR reporting is sufficiently demanding when time is not of the essence.For the deployed OA team, the challenge is even greater. Again, some form of simple checklistmay aid the development of clear, concise reports and for reviewing them with respect to bothstyle and content.For deployed OA teams, and those back at DSTO directly supporting them, there may beinsufficient time to apply such processes during the study with pressures from a continualstream of new OA tasks restricting the time available for any post-activity evaluation of FastOR studies. Simple schema and tools for evaluation could help, as could support in this areafrom the wider DSTO OR community. The initial steps towards addressing this problem havebeen made through a workshop held as part of the Defence Operations Research Symposium2009. At the symposium, the DSTO CoBP was extensively reviewed with a view to revisingand incorporating some specific guidance in areas such as Fast OR. In the interim, some ofthe hallmarks and principles outlined in this paper may be of use for the quick evaluation ofcompleted Fast OR studies.68