From msom-skills
Guides building the analytical model or operational mechanism at the core of an M&SOM manuscript — formulating decisions, objectives, and uncertainty, deriving structural results, or specifying operational mechanisms for empirical hypotheses. Adapts theory development to M&SOM's analytical/stochastic-modeling tradition.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/msom-skills:msom-theory-developmentThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
- You have a topic but no formal model or sharp operational mechanism yet
M&SOM's historically dominant methodology is analytical/stochastic operations modeling. A strong model makes the operational decision explicit and yields structural insight, not just a numerical answer:
Specify the operational mechanism before estimation: state the behavioral/operational channel (e.g., congestion, learning, inventory record inaccuracy, demand shaping) and the comparative-statics prediction it implies, so the empirical test maps to an operations theory, not a correlation hunt.
Every mechanism must change an operational decision or outcome. If the model could be relabeled as pure economics or marketing with no operational lever, return to msom-topic-selection.
Run this as a concrete capability pass. First lock the process bottleneck, decision policy, queue/inventory/service mechanism, and implementation constraint; then test whether the manuscript addresses operations reviewers who look for service/manufacturing process insight, implementable policies, and operational performance evidence.
claim / evidence / blocker / next edit rows so the next pass can patch the manuscript directly.resources/official-source-map.md for volatile rules and name the one unresolved fact that could change the recommendation.Vignette: a perishable-inventory model for a hospital blood bank choosing a daily order quantity when units expire after a fixed shelf life. The decision is the order-up-to level; the uncertainty is daily demand plus age-dependent outdating. A dynamic program is the right class because the contribution is the form of the optimal rule under perishability. The structural result — an order-up-to level that declines as on-hand inventory ages — is the insight; an illustrative numerical study shows a flat base-stock rule that ignores age raises outdating by 11% (numbers illustrative). The mechanism, aging shifting the marginal value of a unit, is what makes this OM rather than relabeled statistics.
msom-topic-selection; M&SOM gates on an operations lever, not a clever equilibrium.【Decision / objective / uncertainty】...
【Model class】newsvendor / MDP / queueing / stochastic-prog / game-theoretic — why
【Structural results】policy form / comparative statics / equilibrium ...
【Assumptions】binding ones flagged ...
【Operations centrality】confirmed ...
【Next step】msom-literature-positioning
npx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin msom-skillsBuilds formal models and develops theory for Production and Operations Management manuscripts, including analytical modeling, empirical hypothesis derivation, and behavioral experiment design.
Selects the appropriate analytical model class or empirical identification strategy for M&SOM manuscripts based on the operational decision. Useful when matching method to operations problem.
Builds theoretical arguments and hypotheses for empirical OM studies, deriving operational mechanisms and adapting reference theory to operations phenomena.