One of our volunteers undertook a strategic review. If your would like Pro Bono support please get in touch. Operational Research is a very broad spectrum and there is usually a way in which it can be applied whether that is increasing efficiency, helping to reduce costs, plan strategy or demonstrate impact. Also if you would like to become a Pro Bono O.R. volunteer please contact me.

1. Where next? What first?
The client:
The Disability Law Service provides legal advice to
disabled people and their families/carers
The client’s problem:
With funding cuts to themselves, but ever-growing needs from their
beneficiaries as the consequences of austerity bite, the organisation
needed to develop a sustainable set of priorities – and bring staff with
them.The solution
• A draft workshop agenda to enable the Chair and
Chief Executive to focus on what they really wanted
to achieve
• Information circulated to all workshop participants to
enable them to think in advance about key issues,
especially their mission and vision
• A pre-workshop email-based SWOT exercise to
provide starter material for the workshop
• A fast and focused facilitated workshop, with write-
up delivered soon after
The benefits
• Participants, including all staff and most trustees, were brought to the
same point in thinking about what the organisation is trying to achieve,
and what challenges it faces
• Participants reached a shared understanding of the strengths and
weaknesses that they could exploit, or needed to build on, in future
planning
• Together with the list of options generated at the meeting, this gave a
sound basis for future strategy development and prioritisation
The approach
The Chair and Chief Executive of the charity had already planned to
approach the problem through a two-hour workshop to which all staff and
trustees had been invited. They simply wanted the O.R. volunteer to
facilitate the workshop.
The O.R. volunteer met the Chair and Chief Executive the week before the
workshop to understand the issues facing the organisation, and the
outcomes they wanted from the workshop and longer term. The first
challenge was to work out how anything useful could be achieved from
such a short workshop; especially bearing in mind that this was the first
such workshop the organisation had held.
Following the meeting, the volunteer agreed an agenda for the workshop,
together with advance materials that gave a springboard to discussion
without detracting from engagement at the workshop itself. This enabled a
smooth and productive workshop, with collective agreement on next steps.
Ruth very quickly understood what we were trying to achieve, and designed
a workshop which helped us achieve our objectives in a very short space of
time. Ruth's involvement in this phase of our strategy development helped
us to have a new kind of conversation as an organisation.