How to build the best Project Management Office for your business.

Do you understand what a PMO can and should do for your organisation? Jonathan Norman invites Peter Taylor (The Lazy Project Manager) to tell us about the steady rise in investment in PMOs and what it means for organisations.

In part one Peter, the author of Leading Successful PMOs, discusses getting the balance right in order to make a PMO truely successful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P_IH9gozow  This 8 min section discusses how to build a successful and sustainable PMO.

Part two is a little longer at 12 minutes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiXY5OFxmys and covers how to assess your organisation to see if a PMO is the right direction to take. What drives the need for a PMO, and will it be virtual or temporary, specialist even?  Leadership qualities, business culture and the future of PMOs is also discussed.

Peter Taylor (The Lazy PM) author of Leading Successful PMOs

A sustainable alternative to globalization

 

Peter McManners author of Green Outcomes in the Real World published by Gower.

Watch this conversation between Gower Commissioning Editor Jonathan Norman and author of Green Outcomes in the Real World - Peter McManners. In this first three minute extract they discuss the aspects of Challenges of Economic Globalization and Sustainability, the limits to resources and the effect on the environment, along with engaging your people to buy-in to sustainability and localism.Carry on and watch part two  (4 mins) where Peter discusses the diminishing power of traditional Nation States  and the growth of huge multinationals - is that a threat to sustainability? He also discusses cradle to cradle production systems and how it is being driven by sustainability.  In part three (3 mins) Peter  looks at other forms of payment apart from money – swapping work – is this a black economy or does it energise communities?

 

Talent Management what is it?

Recently, Gower Commissioning Editor Jonathan Norman, sat down with Nigel Povah, co-editor of Assessment Centres and Global Talent Management and asked him how assessement centres address the issues of diversity. We filmed as they continued to discuss how Assessment Centres can find talented individuals, and then broke the discussion down into three section so you can watch in chunks.

Do let us know if you find our short chats interesting and useful.

Part one of three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj_8_1Le1-Q  (5mins)

You can view part 2 of the interview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmzzlPrIgI8 (5 mins) and part 3 here: http://youtu.be/-y5aFNLgRnI (4 mins)

Intellectual Property Value – read the small print!

On World Intellectual Property Day, who can predict what will happen with the value of intellectual property in the future. Will it still be the same in 2025, will it be seen as an irrelevance or will everything be crowd-sourced, socially-owned and open sourced? As a publisher Gower has a vested interest in what will happen and, with the caveat that my views are coloured by my position, let me offer three observations …

Paid for content versus everything for free
Free stuff is always welcome but without question, you do get what you pay for, and innovation, creativity and new content all have a cost. Personally, I think that, while new models will continue to emerge (who could have imagined the mobile apps model 10 years ago!), the need for curation of content and information will mean that customers will still be willing to pay. In a world where digital content is exploding, the value of rigorous, consistent and well signposted content is surely very significant;

New shared models
Crowdsourcing is attracting a lot of attention, but there are other more mainstream opportunities for businesses to create and innovate that don’t involve the mass market. Collaborative business is on the rise and with it comes a need and an aspiration for organizations to share risk and, consequently, share reward. That must point towards some new models that enable practical shared ownership of IP rights between different organizations, companies, governments and NGOs.

A collaborative approach to publishing
I am very proud of the fact that Gower has always worked with our authors and editors on the basis of licensed rights. We have never insisted that authors assign their copyright as part of a publishing agreement nor have we sought to bind them to us with restrictive arrangements for their future books. We are already developing new collaborative models for publishing in the future – models that enable us to contribute and profit from those aspects of a work’s intellectual property where we can add value through editing, distribution and marketing, whilst at the same time, enabling authors to exploit their own IP in directions and media that are outside our (realistic) reach.

A handful of Gower and Ashgate titles on intellectual property:

       

With the release of the HUGE 644 page Integral Dynamics we discuss this series and its direction

Gower’s Transformation and Innovation Series will have produced, by the end of 2013, an impressive collection of volumes.

Together, the authors have created an enormously rich resource base for transformation agents in the field of business and economics, but also within society at large. The series provides new, integral approaches to business, management, finance, economics, development, research and other related fields – while consistently combining theory and practice. It draws on different cultural knowledge bases, enabling the reader to effectively contextualize and practically engage in transformation processes leading to new sustainable realities in business, economics and beyond.

Embodying an enormous cultural diversity, together the series represents 12 countries, spread across Africa, Asia, Europe and USA. With each author working with and highlighting her or his particular cultural and societal context, we can proudly speak of a truly transcultural series.

The home page for the series includes prologues to read, and each book below has a free chapter to read on our website.

AN OVERALL INTEGRAL PERSPECTIVE:

…and the forthcoming: Integral Development: Realising the Transformative Potential of Individuals, Organisations and Societies

A MIDDLE EASTERN ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE:

…and the forthcoming: Transforming Trade Policy in an Arab State: A Postmodern Approach

AN ASIAN SPIRITUAL, CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE:

…and the forthcoming: Remaking Ourselves, Enterprise and Society: An Indian Approach to Human Values in Management

AN AFRICAN POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE:

…and the forthcoming: An Integral Approach to Development Economics: Islamic Finance in an African Context

A EUROPEAN TECHNOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE:

…and the forthcoming: Crafting an Integral Enterprise: Towards a Sustainable Telecommunications Sector

AN AMERICAN SPIRITUAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE:

Webinar: How can HR unlock the value of the middle manager?

Jane Sparrow with be presenting a webinar on Monday 18th March, 2013 at 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM GMT discussing how HR can unlock the value of the middle manager.

Jane believes it is essential that managers have the confidence and capability to be great engagers and this is the only way to truly build and sustain a high performance culture. Within the webinar, she will provide proven and practical strategies for HR Professionals which they can use in order to support their managers and use throughout their organisation.

You can register for the webinar here.

Jane is author of The Culture Builders.

There are good reasons why senior managers show scant interest in project management.

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez’ article in PM World Journal is a fascinating insight into why senior managers tend to ignore project management. I won’t steal his thunder – read the article, it is an interesting perspective; whilst it may feel somewhat depressing I think there is plenty of evidence that things are changing. Antonio is author of The Focused Organization: How Concentrating on a Few Key Initiatives Can Dramatically Improve Strategy Execution.

Surely, time to stop being lead by the nose?

I really enjoyed Douglas Board’s interview with Bob Garlick on the recent Business Book Talk. It’s extraordinarily demoralising, when we are all struggling to create a new future in an uncertain business world, to see those selected and paid to lead us so often seem to have feet of clay. Douglas’ insights into executive selection offer some pragmatic ways of changing by understanding and embracing the uncertainty and complexity it involves. If we adopt the kind of approaches he is advocating in the place of the old, self-perpetuating ones, I wonder to what extent this would change both the quality of our leaders and the culture of leadership which they enable? Douglas Board is author of Choosing Leaders and Choosing to Lead: Science, Politics and Intuition in Executive Selection.

Getting Smart about Flexible Working

There still seems to be a lot of scepticism surrounding the benefits that flexible working can have on businesses.  With new leave regulations and new measures for flexible working being implemented by the government during 2013, this is a step in the right direction, however, it may reinforce sceptical attitudes towards flexible working.

You can read more about this subject by author Andy Lake, who has written a recent blog for HRZone. Simply register your details online for free.

Andy Lake’s book Smart Flexibility is available here, you can also read chapter 1, at your own convenience.

Two Day Anti-Money Laundering Training Course led by Gower author Doug Hopton

The 2013 dates have been released for a Mastering Anti-Money Laundering Training Course.  The first two day course will be running on 16-17 May 2013 in London.

Some of the topic areas covered:
Introduction to Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing ~ Role of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) ~ EU Directives ~ The US and its Effect Internationally ~ UK Legal and Regulatory Requirements ~ Customer Due Diligence ~ Ongoing Monitoring ~ Record Keeping ~ Suspicions and Reporting ~ Money Laundering Reporting Officer ~ Senior Management Responsibility ~ Training and Awareness ~ Sanctions ~ Interrelationship Between Financial Crime/Fraud And Money Laundering

If you would like to know more, you can download the Mastering Anti-Money Laundering brochure, or ring to speak to one of our consultants on +44 (0)20 7017 7190.

This course has an impressive agenda which you will find on the course website.  The course leader is a Gower author Doug Hopton who is a Consultant and Trainer on money laundering and financial crime prevention.  Before establishing his company in 2003, he was with Barclays Bank for over 37 years for many of which he was Head of Group Fraud and Money Laundering Prevention.  All of his years of knowledge will be condensed into your two days training.

Information about Doug’s book Money Laundering including a PDF of the whole of chapter one to read at your leisure can be found on our website.