As the market is softening significantly and market rates are dropping, there might be room to learn.

Just talked about ‘Tips on Feedback’ based on email by Dominc Siow, the author is providing a 2 day seminar in Brisbane about Leadership and Career Development for Office Professionals.

Leadership and career development for office professionals is a 2-day professional Master Class
designed specifically for office professionals who are eager to excel in their current work and
develop leadership qualities to make a successful transition to more strategic, senior roles in an
organization. It will help you firstly decide if senior management is for you and if it is, help you
create a roadmap, learn the tools and strategies to effectively make the transition to being the
most successful manager and leader you can be.

Dominic will talk about

• How to assess your effectiveness as an office professional?
• Getting clear about your career direction, how that supports your organization and how to put together an action plan to move towards this
• How to work and think like leaders – excel in whatever you do.
• What it takes to make a successful transition to management and leadership
  How to identify and proactively be able to create even more value for your management and other stakeholders
• How to stay on top of multiple demands placed on you by different stakeholders
• How to effectively manage work-life balance and continue to thrive in your career
• How to communicate assertively and effectively to achieve the maximum impact
• How to identify and work effectively with stakeholders with different agendas
• How to influence effectively in the absence of authority, both upwards and downwards
• Understanding what your manager and other stakeholders want, managing expectations and driving to the most effective outcomes
• How to improve your communications and working relationships with your peers, managers and other stakeholders

As I am very much aware about Dominic’s presentation and facilitation techniques and capabilities it sounds like a great seminar. To book go to LearningNetworks.

After I struggled a lot recently to get the right books without ordering them via amazon and have to pay the high shipping costs beside waiting 4 to 6 weeks if you not want to spend a fortune, I usually pay a visit at borders in Brisbane CBD.

However, today I had a meeting in the City at Queen Street and walked back to my bike and came across McGills Book Store at 307 Queen Street. 

One of the reviews at Google says …

Books for the professional‎ - WCities‎

… For over five years this has been the city’s undisputed leader in technical and specialist books. Upon entering, the first thing that may come to mind is the feeling that you have …‎

Has been really a shame that I didnt come across that great source earlier. Almost 2 years in Brisbane now …

For me the prices seemed to be a little over the average mark, all the retail prices are ‘overmarked’ with their own label and its hard to see the original retail price. However, sometimes the time is crticial and its great to be able to read a book when you need it. Also impressive the friendly and helpful staff in the store.

I have seen books in the area of Marketing, Law, Business, Management, Leadership, Computer Technology (Operationsystems, Programming Languages etc.), Accounting and Finance and a great source of Books in Project Management.

So go and make sure you check out this great source your own View Map

Or make sure you visit the online store at www.mcgills.com.au

Just another couple of hours and i am off to the IQPC Project Risk Management Conference at Southbank in Brisbane. that i was referring to earlier already. My duties during the conference includes chairing the conference, facilitating the interactive discussions, the keynote about “The critical value of Risk Management”, a presentation about “Effective Health Checks” and facilitating a workshop together with Molli Ong on Thursday. So tomorrow i will attend the so called Master Class about “The A-Z of Project Risk Management” to get my mind in the space of where it needs to be for the next 4 days.

So what will happen over the next 4 days:

Day 1, Monday: Masterclass ”The A-Z of Project Risk Management”

According to the program, Kathleen Kuryl, a Programme Manager at the Tasmanian Department of Premier and Cabinet will talk about that the concept of managing risk within project delivery is not new in the project management field. However, it is still broadly misunderstood or ineffectively managed. We as participants will explore innovative ways to implement and/or improve your risk management frameworks in order to achieve optimum project performance.

And the bullet points sound pretty interesting and i will blog tomorrow evening about this and let you know what i got out of this.

Day 2 and 3, Tuesday - Wednesday: “The conference”

Beside speakers out of the Government and private environment that all sound very senior some good talks are on the agenda about

• how to apply the right project structure to manage your risks accordingly
• how to identify an analys your risk upfront
• the effective contigency planning and idenitify the right strategy
• strategies for effective risk governance and ongoing risk control
• turning risks into opportunities
• The correct budget forecasting
• analysing the complexity of effective stakeholder management
• managing expectations
• managing contractual relationships to optimise your risk strategy

and two interactive Discussion about

• Budget forecasting
• the role of software packages managing risks 

Day 4, Thursday “The Workshops”

Two workshops are lined up for Thursday, the first one is “How to Identify, Measure and Manage Risk Throughout the Life Cycle of the Project” talking about that risk management is a process that should last as long as the project to which it is applied. During this workshop, the participants will be able to find out how to effectively manage risk and learn how various risks affect each other throughout your whole project life cycle. And the second is called “How to Engage and Manage Stakeholders to Ensure Successful Project Delivery” talking about that successful project delivery is often dependent on the contribution of others, be it an internal or external contribution. In accordance, risk management within project delivery also requires the active involvement of various stakeholders to be successful. In this workshop, learn to develop your stakeholder management skills as a strategy for ensuring optimal management of risk throughout the life of your project. 

Bottom Line it looks like a very good 4 days with lots of opportunities to learn. How ever, i am really looking into to understand the concept and value of IQPC hosted and organised “Conferences”. Two reasons why.

1. The number of audiences doesnt really justify the term “Conference” as we expect 60 people for this one
2. How speakers are selected and quality checked before presenting
3. How the program has been compiled and changed in the last couple of days

I will talk more about this after the conference once i have a better understanding and talked to some participants and the organizer.

 
Usually i would have written another post this afternoon, how ever it has to wait, we are now off to the october fest, yes, here in Brisbane. This year with VIP tables and 1Liter Steins. I know that heeps of project and programme managers are going to be around and will be at our table. So for $75 per seat we will enjoy the German music and the lederhosen of course. There probably wont be any fotos but may be some stories to tell.

Update: After the first evening.

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