A year ago I had never heard of the term ‘Operational
Research’ or in fact heard of ‘The OR Society’.
One year on the terms have become part of my daily vocabulary and one of
my aims is to ensure other people have heard about The OR Society and in
particular how significant operational research is and the enormous impact it
can have in benefiting the world in which we live.
My first exposure to operational research was The OR Society’s
annual conference (OR55) last September.
I was amazed at the ways in which operational research could be used in
all sectors and how significant it was in helping to increasing efficiency and
effectivness, reducing costs, helping plan strategy and much much more. As OR56 starts today I am able to look back
at the last year and reflect on how operational research has been used to
impact the third sector.
I have had the pleasure of managing the Pro Bono O.R.
project which is a service provided on behalf of The OR Society to Third Sector
organisations (UK only) in order to provide them with access to O.R. at the
cost of expenses only.
The aims of the Pro Bono O.R. scheme are:
• To
help Third Sector organisations to do a better job;
• To
promote O.R. in the Third Sector;
• To
give O.R. analysts an opportunity to practise in a wider arena and widen their
skills.
We found these were some of the problems the third sector
was facing:
• ‘We
have lots of different options for the future but it’s impossible to decide
which to choose in such uncertain times.’
• ‘We’re
under huge pressure to do more with less, and we don’t know how we’re going to
do it.’
• ‘It’s
hard to stay objective when we’re faced with such emotionally charged
decisions.’
• ‘We
know we’re doing a good job – but how can we prove it?’
A large part of my role has been promoting and increasing
awareness of the project to both organisations who could benefit from pro bono
O.R. and volunteer analysts who work on the projects.
Over the last 12 months we have had interest from 60
organisations, have completed 6 projects, have 13 projects that are currently
being worked on, have 3 which are establishing a project scope and a further 10
that are in the initial enquiry stage. Information on the completed case studies can
be found on the webpage: http://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Probono/Probono.aspx
I have recruited 100 new volunteers since September 2013 and
we know have over 200 volunteer on the database. Of those around 130 are active and ready to
work on projects. These volunteers are
made up of both members of the society and non-members. In the past year we have advertised 21
projects to our volunteers, 54 of the volunteers have applied to work on
projects and of those 28 have worked or are currently working on projects.
It has been really rewarding to hear how successful this
project has been both from the organisations and the volunteers.
Here’s what a few of the organisations have had to say:
‘We’ve benefited hugely from your work and support in all
areas of the project, and from an organisational perspective you’ve enabled us
to take a highly professional approach to increasing the efficiency of our
charity.’
‘The work is already supporting our planning and
development for next year and allowing us to focus our thoughts and decisions
on the places of most importance for our organisation’
‘Brilliant – it makes the predictions of risk
visible. This will be so useful’
Here is what a few of our volunteers have said:
"It’s a chance to
make a difference, practice getting to the heart of a problem quickly,
meet some very dedicated people and use techniques which you might not in your
every day job"
"I’ve really
enjoyed working with third sector organisations and found the staff extremely
positive about the contribution we make"
"Working as a pro
bono volunteer is a great way to contribute some professional expertise to some
truly worthwhile causes. The Third Sector is full of people who feel
passionately about their Mission, so working with them is invariably a positive
learning experience"
If you are an organisation that would like to receive Pro
Bono O.R. support or have the skills to become a volunteer, please do not
hesitate to get in touch. Please visit: http://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Probono/Probono.aspx
or send an email to felicity.mcleister@theorsociety.com
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