The Importance of People in Energy Reduction

Kit Oung’s Guardian Professional article The Importance of People in Energy Reduction accurately reflects my own experience. We have done a lot since we moved to our new premises to reduce our energy consumption and pretty much all of that has been motivated by the employee team who make up our green committee. The message is unequivocal: spend time thinking about the human factors, they are far and away more significant than technology-based solutions for most businesses. Kit Oung is author of the forthcoming Energy Management in Business: The Manager’s Guide to Maximizing and Sustaining Energy Reduction.

Gower author and editor appears on BBC Breakfast News

Distinguished professor at Lancaster University Management School, Professor Cary Cooper is a regular guest on  BBC Breakfast News. This morning he was there to discuss how to create motivation at work and keep sickness absence low. In April he was there to underline the importance of taking holidays. Despite the current climate,  Professor Cooper says “research shows it’s good for you, both physically and mentally.”

Cary Cooper, who specialises in Organizational Psychology and Health, has authored over 150 books pertaining to psychology and was heralded the ’5th Most Influential Thinker in HR in 2011.’

Risk management is an ongoing concern for modern organizations in terms of their finance, their people, their assets, their projects and their reputation. That’s why the research and exploration detailed in the series edited by Professor Cary (Psychological and Behavioural Aspects of Risk) is so important.

Come and see us at Information Design Conference 2012

Gower is attending and exhibiting at Information Design 2012 (12th-13th April) at Greenwich University, London. The event has a very eclectic programme, reflecting the many aspects of information design: human factors, information management, design management, visual studies, architectural design … the list goes on. If you are planning to attend, do drop me an e-mail (jnorman@gowerpublishing.com) and call by the Gower/Ashgate bookstand. I’ll be delighted to meet you.

Project Management in 2011

This is the second in the promised series of posts highlighting Gower’s publishing programme in a given topic area for the next 12 months.  I won’t attempt to document all our new books but rather a give you a flavour of some highlights.

Project and Programme Management
Is the largest single list within our current publishing, on the basis of number of books published and commissioned. There are several continuing themes to our new books in 2011:

Project Performance and Resilience
Many of our new titles are designed to help you address a particular aspect of your organization’s project or programme management or develop your capability or resilience for project delivery. Some books, such as Emanuel Camilleri’s Project Success or Michael Cavanagh’s Second Order Project Management, go to the heart of those strategies and techniques that don’t just secure project or programme delivery but ensure value and commercial success too. Others, such as David Cleden’s Bid Writing for Project Managers or Integrated Cost-Schedule Risk Analysis, the follow up to David Hulett’s wonderful Practical Schedule Risk Analysis, provide expert help on one or more specific element within project management.

The Context of Projects and Programmes
We have a clutch of titles in preparation for 2011 or early 2012 that offer perspectives on the context within which projects and programmes are managed. There are a couple of titles from Professor Darren Dalcher’s highly regarded series, Advances in Project Management, that do this particularly well, for example: Haukur Ingi Jonasson and Helgi Thor Ingason’s Project Ethics,  Ron Basu’s Managing Project Supply Chains and Spirituality and Project Management by Judith Neal and Alan Harpham.

Programme or Program Management
We have some strong titles to follow on from Michel Thiry’s 2010 Program Management. Roger and Adam Davies’ Value Management does a good job of connecting programmes with strategy and their intended outcomes and the first of two books from the author of The Lazy Project Manager, Peter Taylor, provides those people responsible for their project or programme management office with a very pragmatic guide to leadership: Leading Successful PMOs.

People in Projects and Programmes
The final clutch of three titles I want to highlight are those that cover human factors or, if you prefer, people in projects. There are two follow up titles in this group: Kaye Remington’s Leading Complex Projects (which follows her 2008 book Tools for Complex Projects) and Lynda Bourne’s Advising Upwards (which is a follow up to her 2009 book, Stakeholder Relationship Management) . There is also Sharon Di Mascia’s Using Psychology in Project Management, which is another book that very successfully draws in models and pragmatic advice from outside the usual project methodologies.

And, if I am allowed a last minute, wild card entry, let me sneak in a mention for Penny Pullan and Ruth Murray-Webster’s A Short Guide to Facilitating Risk Management from the Short Guides to Business Risk Series; very definitely appropriate for anyone involved in project risk management.

Please do offer any feedback on this programme of publishing or, if you wish, you can contact me with your own subject suggestions, requests or even book proposals.
Jonathan Norman, Publisher

How far is risk all a figment of your imagination?

I exaggerate for effect but I do recommend you come along to the Human Factors and Communication Special Interest Group of the Institute of Risk Management on 28th June. I think that the value of many associations and networks can be measured in the quality of their special interest groups; this particular group is excellent and provides a vehicle for exploring the human side of risk – how each of us makes sense of risk from a personal, group and organizational perspective. The session on risk attitude on the 28th is facilitated by two of the best speakers I know on the subject, David Hillson and Ruth Murray-Webster (Understanding and Managing Risk Attitude and Managing Group Risk Attitude).  Ruth tells me that they are planning some risk roleplays and a detailed debrief – should be engaging and very thought provoking.

An Opportunity to Meet Risk Management Authors and our Publisher

I am delighted that we will be exhibiting at the Institute of Risk Management Professional Development Forum (April 20th-21st) again this year. I met all sorts of risk professionals at last year’s event and it was a great opportunity for IRM members to browse through our risk titles. At this year’s event we will have a stand with a wide range of our risk books and I see that a number of our authors such as David Hillson and Ann Alder are speaking at the event too.