Pro Bono OR volunteers bring the power of OR to the third sector

LOUISE ALLISON, PRO BONO OR MANAGER

Thanks to the support of Pro Bono OR volunteers, we have started 11 projects so far this year. Here is an overview of the new activity:

The project with In Kind Direct is reviewing and designing improvements to the way the organisation estimates the number of end-users benefiting from its services.

The British Trust for Ornithology is being supported to review and analyse the key business processes of projects’

initiation, prioritisation, estimation and allocation to teams and individuals.

The aim is to show which activities can be improved and to propose

a redesign of the organisation’s system for project and programme management.

One volunteer is providing an analysis of the results from the National Federation of Women’s Institutes’ Count Me In! survey plus advice on future data collection exercises that the organisation want to carry out.

Even The OR Society itself is being supported in two areas of its operations. The Publications Committee had the current reviewer and author demographic of The OR Society journals assessed in line with the Society’s Diversity and Inclusion policies and a report presented back to them. Another volunteer has undertaken a systematic debrief of current marketing team activities with a view to recommending ways to improve work processes.

A team of volunteers from the Department for Transport are analysing how Porchlight’s call centre operates and services are run with a particular focus on improving the triage process.