Doing good at doing O.R. #ORblog

As part of Pro Bono O.R. I like to seek feedback from both the volunteers and the organisations to find out how the projects are going.  The scheme has received overwhelmingly positive support since launching in September 2013 and I wanted to take this opportunity to share the latest endorsements.

Thank you to Simon Glenister for the feedback on the #ProBonoOR project carried out for Noise Solution on behalf of The OR Society: 'The commitment shown to the idea of the project was excellent. The volunteer did a really good job of understanding what was required. He produced some excellent work, that looked visually great and has been instrumental in me being able to demonstrate clearly the impacts that we are achieving with Noise Solution'.  

The project case study slide will be posted soon - watch this space!

Two Pro Bono O.R. volunteers started supporting Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) back in 2014, giving independent & expert advice on the commission & use of poverty models. Thank you to Chris Goulden for the feedback on the support you've received so far: 'I've been extremely pleased with the O.R. input'. 

Lastly, thank you to NAVCA who promoted Pro Bono O.R. in their latest publication, sharing an example of how Pro Bono O.R. helped Harrogate & Rippon CVS 'to get a robust picture of the costs of running the well being service and any issues to be addressed in the light of forthcoming finding cuts and contract changes' 

Pro Bono O.R. provides free support to third sector organisations across the UK, helping them to make operational improvements e.g. 

• Strategic planning/review  
• Impact measurement 
• Process improvement 
• Data analysis 
• Business planning 
• Efficiency improvement 
• Options appraisal

To find out how your third sector organisation could receive free support please contact: felicity.mcleister@theorsociety.com

To sign up to become a volunteer please Pro Bono O.R.

Operational Research - among the best job of 2015! #ORblog #ThisIsOR

More evidence that O.R. is the best job, with O.R. skills being cited among the top ten jobs of 2015.

With mathematician, statistician and data scientist all appearing in the top 10 jobs of 2015, there has never been a better time to be in O.R. 

See the following link for more details: Independent: top 10 jobs

For more information about O.R. please visit: 

The OR Society

The Society's main function is to enable members to acquire, share and exchange knowledge. To find out more about O.R. or for teaching resources go to Learn About O.R. Looking to improve your business or organisation? Go to The Science of Better.

Using Pro Bono O.R. to address a wide range of operational improvements

Pro Bono O.R. (Operational Research) – free consultancy for third sector organisations

UK based organisations in the third sector can benefit from O.R. consultancy at no cost. The Operational Research society is offering third sector organisations the opportunity for free consultancy to address a wide range of operational improvements – for example greater efficiency, better customer service, higher quality or lower cost.  Whatever the aim, O.R. can offer the flexibility and adaptability to provide objective help.

O.R. is about finding ways to apply analytical methods to make better decisions. Third Sector organisations face extremely complex decisions about the direction they should take and how to allocate scarce resources.  These are some of the issues the organisations we’ve worked with have faced:

• ‘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?’

 Here are some of the issues the projects we've already completed have addressed:

• Strategic planning/review
• Impact measurement
• Process improvement
• Data analysis
• Business planning
• Efficiency improvement
• Options appraisal
• Decision making

O.R. consistently delivers significant value – strategic to tactical, top-line to bottom-line – to the organisations and executives who use it.   

 Since launching in September 2013, Pro Bono O.R. has completed twelve projects and is currently working with a further fifteen organisations.  In addition to that there are several organisations that have expressed an interest in receiving support.  We have over 250 volunteers across the UK and these range from retired professionals to analysts in their early career, consultants and others in the O.R./analytics profession who either volunteer in their own time, are given company time or a mixture of both.  Forty four of those volunteers have already worked/are working on projects and many more are eager to get involved with helping support third sector organisations.

Hear what the organisation have to say:

"We are enormously grateful for being able to benefit from the advice and support of such a knowledgeable and experienced professional, who was able to raise challenging issues in a sensitive and helpful way"

"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"

Hear what the volunteers have to say:

"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"

For further information about the scheme please visit: http://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Probono/Probono.aspx

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Still wondering if Pro Bono O.R. could help your organisation? Check out all the projects we've completed so far

This PowerPoint presentation provides a one page case study slide for each project Pro Bono O.R. has worked on so far: Pro Bono O.R. Case Studies 

The variety of the projects shows just how widely O.R. can be applied whether you want to: 
Review your strategy; 
Reduce costs; 
Improve processes; 
Improve utilisation of limited resources; 
Demonstrate impact; 
and much more, O.R. can offer the flexibility and adaptability to provide objective help.

Don't just take my work for it, here is what some of the organsations we've work with have to say:

'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. It has helped us to come up with new solutions already.'

'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.'

'Brilliant – it makes the predictions of risk visible. This will be so useful.'

'I’m really pleased with the report and it will be very useful indeed for forward planning and to support our Big Lottery bid.'

For more information please visit Pro Bono O.R. or contact me via email, twitter or LinkedIn 

Pro Bono O.R. collaborates with Career Volunteer

I am delighted to announce that Pro Bono O.R. will be working with Career Volunteer.

Career Volunteer works with charities and social enterprises around the world to assist with trustee recruitment, skilled volunteers and Board members through corporate volunteering, employee engagement, skilled volunteering programmes and executive search.

Career Volunteer works with skilled volunteers - people with strong skill sets looking to add to their careers through volunteering. Their aim is to make skilled volunteering or being a trustee a normal part of working life for the majority of people; to unleash their skills in a way that builds capacity and resources for charities worldwide. 

They are keen to see more large companies provide structured time and support for their emerging leaders to engage in supporting charities as trustees and skilled volunteers through their CSR, corporate social responsibility programmes and their leadership development programmes, seeing this as good for everyone concerned. 

Career Volunteer's vision to unleash the talents and skills in the corporate and public sector for the benefit of charities and social enterprises has great synergy with Pro Bono O.R., whose aim is to use skilled volunteering to help third sector organisations, give volunteers opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills and to increase the awareness of Operational Research.

Working together will enable Pro Bono O.R. to carry out more projects by being able to advertise projects through the Career Volunteer website and therefore having a wider pool of volunteers who are able to apply for projects.

I am really excited by this collaboration and look forward to seeing how we can provide mutual support for one another; ultimately providing benefit to the third sector and providing more opportunities for skilled volunteering.

To see more about Career Volunteer and the types of volunteer roles they are currently recruiting for please visit their website

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If you are not already a member of The OR Society and are interested in joining please visit https://www.theorsociety.com/or send an email to carol.smith@theorsociety.com

Additionally you may be interested in becoming a member of our Third Sector Special Interest Group (ORiTS). For more details visit:  https://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/SpecialInterest/ORThirdSector.aspx

Other pages that may be of interest:

http://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Probono/Probono.aspx 

http://www.LearnAboutOR.co.uk

http://www.ScienceofBetter.co.uk

IFORS (International Federation of OR Societies) promotes Pro Bono O.R. who are leading the way with skilled O.R. volunteering

The UK O.R. Society are the first to launch such a scheme (Pro Bono O.R.) and as such want to share their experience and good practice to encourage other Societies to set up similar schemes.

This month IFORS have promoted the scheme in their newsletter (page 18):  http://ifors.org/newsletter/ifors-dec-2014.pdf and plan to publish summaries of several volunteer projects in the next few issues to show the benefit of such schemes.  IFORS also have a section on their website as well as on-line resources where further information about Pro Bono O.R. can be found.

The article covers how the scheme works, benefits for the organisations and the volunteers, spreading the word and a summary of a recent project with the Dachshunds Breed Council: Developing a tool to help dog breeders predict genetic risks.

For further information please either contact me directly on felicity.mcleister@theorsociety.com or visit the webpage.