Joseph Cowley

This Armchair Guide To Scientific Decision-Making is especially designed to help the manager in industry, business, government, or the military make better, more effective decisions in an increasingly complex world. Originally published in hardcover by McGraw-Hill, it was picked up by three book clubs, printed in a special edition for English-speaking Europeans, and translated into Portuguese and Japanese. It is now considered a classic in the field of management science.

Tailored for the busy executive, here is a down-to-earth guide to the newer techniques of scientific decision-making known as operations research or management science. Practical in every respect, this volume discusses each area from the executive's point of view -- explaining how various problems you face may be solved far better through quantitative decision-making techniques.

Key sections in the book deal with the major types of problems that can be tackled with operations research. A number of chapters detail quantitative methods that can be applied, in language familiar to the executive. One chapter even outlines just when you should call in the expert and how you can use him to best advantage.

The volume contains many practical illustrations with which you can easily identify, and was specifically designed for self-study. In addition, the chapters that are management-oriented -- those that describe kinds of executive problems -- are intermixed with chapters that explain the techniques. For example, the book begins rather simply with the decision implications of a case history from mythology (the judgment of Paris), and builds up gradually, introducing you step-by-step to all the complexities of today's management sciences. And the volume concludes with a realistic formula for putting the methods to work.

THE EXECUTIVE STRATEGIST also includes the Action Checklist, an easy-to-understand, end-of-the-book summary of how you can employ the various management science techniques in each case. Containing practically no mathematics, the book is written with a light hand, in terms expecially couched for executives and managers who may have little or no technical training, but who must keep abreast of the latest scienticic decision-making principles. It includes many explanatory charts and diagrams as well as delightful illustrations by the well-known New Yorker cartoonist, Al Ross.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ROBERT C. WEISSELBERG is Manager of Management Sciences at EBS Management Consultants, Inc., where he directs consulting assignments in information systems and management sciences for utility, industrial, and government clients. Mr. Weisselberg was previously manager of Long Island Lighting Company's management systems, systems manager of McGraw-Hill's aerospace information retrieval program, and director of administration for Management Assistance, Inc.

JOSEPH G. COWLEY, an Editor with the Research Institute of America since 1956, writes and edits material for a national audience on selling, marketing, management, and other business subjects. He has developed research reports on such subjects as organizational planning, motivational analysis, logic networks, statistical analysis, game theory, basic decision theory, probability theory, and computer and information systems.