Models:

Management science model building
  1. Choose a problem or puzzle from the management scientist's bag of tricks in order to mirror a trouble that has been perceived in the real world.
  2. Craft the puzzle  into as close a representation of the trouble as possible, with the help of some selective perceptions and simplifying assumptions about the real world trouble.
The result is a management science model of the situation, with
  1. an initial state resembling what is perceived to be the current situation,
  2. a set of operations resembling what it might be possible to really do about the trouble, and
  3. a goal state that corresponds to the cure of a disturbance or the successful exploitation of an opportunity