Season's greetings

 2024 was the busiest year ever for PAWA Consulting Ltd.  

So, phew.  Good to take a break till 6th January 2025

Hope your business prospers in 2025.

(Hope ALL our businesses prosper in 2025!)

IChemE - what engineers needs to know about Contracts - 25 to 27 November 2024

 

Gosh this has been a year - busiest ever for PAWA Consulting. And some family issues.

Anyway as we get to the end I finally have a minute to promote one of our regular open courses for IChemE.

This is online, from 10am to 1pm uk time for 3 days 25/26/27 November 2024.

We shall also be running it in person in Rugby in 2025 (gosh, 2025 - sounds like a date from science fiction).

Full details of the course are here.

BIP Solutions - Understanding Sustainability in Public Procurement Tuesday 30th April 2024

 I am running a course on this increasingly important topic on Tuesday 30th April 2024.

Full details are here.

The course requires no previous knowledge or understanding.  We shall briefly discuss the new Procurement Act 2023, where the change from MEAT to MAT (Most Economically Advantageous Tender to Most Advantageous Tender) may allow us to look more broadly at sustainability criteria.

In difficult times sustainability may seem like a luxury, but it is a priority that is not (and cannot) go away.

I am as always delighted to have tough questions and skepticism on the course.

Hope to see you there.

In the meantime here is a graph to make you worried, which may or may not be in the slide deck for the day.  I know the constant rain in the UK means it doesn't seem like the planet is warming - but that is not how things actually work.

 

CIPS Procurement Fundamentals - Thursday 25th April 2024

 I shall be running CIPS Procurement Fundamentals course on Thursday 25th April 2024, starting at 8:45am for 9am UK time.

This assumes no knowledge of Procurement so is ideal for new starts or those considering a career in Procurement (you should - it is very interesting).

As always the course will be as interactive as I can make it.

Full details are here.

This interactive training course considers fundamental elements of the procurement process, together with basic tools and techniques used within procurement and supply. It provides a robust grounding in procurement basics and is designed for those in a junior procurement/supply chain role or those new to the discipline. Delivered using learning systems and techniques to develop individual skills

The Procurement Act Expo, Tuesday 12th March 2024, Birmingham NEC

 I am going to this event as a delegate rather than as a presenter - that is how valuable and useful I think it is going to be.

Jointly presented by the Cabinet Office and BIP Solutions.

Hope to see you there.

Full details are here.

BIP - DPRTE - The Procurement Act 2023 for Defence Suppliers - 1st February 2024

I was a late substitute called off the bench to moderate this webinar, which will go out on Thursday 1st February 2024.

The Procurement Act 2023 has big implications for all public sector bodies, but for the defence industry there is a really big change as their standalone DSPCR 2011 is combined with other procurement processes.

We have two experts from MOD to talk through the changes, and (as it says) what it means for Defence Suppliers.  I'm just your genial host.

I found the session really interesting, and Alex and Ben have been intimately involved in the legislation and now in the role out - so they know what they are talking about.  

There is a slide pack to go along with the webinar, which will be less than an hour (currently in editing).

Hope you enjoy it.  Joining instructions are here or here (which my system thinks is a dodgy site, but isnt. Honest)

BIP Solutions - Understanding Social Value Monday 25th March 2024

 The very popular course on Understanding Social Value will be run online on Monday 24th March 2024.  Full details are here

BIP Solutions also has some historic content here which might be interesting.

BIP Solutions - Preparing Perfect Tenders 27th February 2024

 We've swapped a couple of events round, and I shall now be presenting Preparing Perfect Tenders online on Tuesday 27th February 2024.

This is one of our events tailored for suppliers to the public sector, and will of course talk about the new Procurement Act 2023 as well as tried and tested ways to make your bids and proposals stand out.

Full details here (the date might still say 7th March, but it WILL be on 27th Feb - we've just agreed)

BIP Solutions - Delivering Effective Market Engagement - 15th February 2024 online

 One of the things about the new Procurement Act 2023 is that it is explicitly opening the door to more engagement with the supply base and market.  Now there was nothing strictly stopping buyers from doing that under the PCR 2015, but in practice Public Sector Buyers were very worried about the risk of challenge for distorting competition.

Well the government is recognising that suppliers have useful insights, and encouraging buyers to discuss procurements with them - but obviously not in a way that does actual distort competition.  And of course, if you are in Sales that is precisely your intention in engaging with potential customers.

But with some forethought this should be a useful capability.

So we are running a seminar to share what we see as best practice, and hope that delegates will share their thoughts and concerns too.

Full details are here.

CIPS Procurement Fundamentals 25th April 2024

 The next CIPS open skills training I am running after Developing Contracts is Procurement Fundamentals.  Again this is suitable for both public and private sector buyers, and for anyone who wants to understand what procurement is (hint: not just shopping or filling in forms).  No prior knowledge is required.

Full details are here.  Hope to see you there.

CIPS Developing Contractual Agreements - open skills training 6th March 2024

 Sticking with the contracts theme...  I am also delighted to be running some open skills training courses for CIPS online this year.

The first of these is Developing Contractual Agreements on 6th March 2024 - full details are here.

Brief description: "This interactive course is particularly relevant for those who are new to procurement. It will provide an awareness of the essential legal principles governing contracts, not just to solve disputes but more importantly, how to avoid them. It considers issues relating to the setting up of contracts and key contract clauses."

The course is suitable for both public and private sector buyers, and indeed for anyone who wants an insight into contracts whatever their role.

Developing Commercial Skills for Buyers - BIP Solutions 7th March 2024

 As well as all the exciting stuff around the new Procurement Act 2023, we haven't forgotten the general skills required for Procurement.  

One of my mantras is that Procurement is just the other side of the table from Sales.  But somehow they are seen as commercial and we are just seen as clerical.  Not accurate!

(though my wife who works in sales thinks her company sometimes thinks they are just clerks too).

So we are running a range of courses for Buyers to help provide all the business and commercial skills that they need.

The first one is Developing Commercial Skills for Buyers online in 7th March 2024 - run by my colleague Gemma

Details are here.

Apologies for the change of date and presenter (no longer 27th February 2024).

I'm still writing it though.... which I guess may NOT be a selling point, but you are warned.

IChemE What Engineers Need to Know about Contracts - July 2024

 This ever popular course has been revised to 3xhalf day courses, and will be run on 10/11/12 July 2024.

A fuller face to face event can be run face to face as an in-house event (we have 2 in January 2024!)

As always full details can be found on the IChemE site here.  AND there is 25% off until 2nd Feb 2024.

Running it over 3 half days gives us a little more breathing space and has allowed me to drop in some more case studies and examples. And some links to some of the other useful IChemE courses such as the one on Project Management and the one on the Model forms of contract (neither of which I run so you can believe me when I say they are good).

Please note that this is entitled "Engineers" and despite being run by IChemE is not just relevant to Chemical Engineers.  Or indeed just to Engineers.

Hope to see you (online) then.

If you are wondering if we will return it to face to face open courses in the future?  Well maybe.  If there is demand.  So if that is what you want, please let us know.  But we intend to carry on online for the future to help reach international engineers.

Recommended Reading

 It is the time of the year when we all start to think that we shall go on a journey of self-improvement....  Good luck.

Anyway I thought I would share some of my recent reading in the hope that others will find them relevant, interesting or just entertaining.

Procurement:

- Well the Procurement Act 2023, obviously.  Many of us will be reading it a lot this year!

- Peter Smith is a former CIPS President who is now working on Procurement with Purpose which I think laudable.  His newsletters are always interesting too - not least because of the new music discussion involved.  Speaking of which, MY favourite new band in 2023 were Pale Blue Eyes  - Shoegaze is BACK I tell you.  Back!  And the Slowdive album (everything is alive) was great too, though my favourite album was Fuse by Everything But the Girl.

General Non-fiction:

- Material World by Ed Conway, a consideration of 6 essential materials.  Ok, I am a former materials scientist working in supply chain, so I guess I AM the target market.  BTW I also want to read a book about the end of ICI.  In his references he suggests a free PDF Sustainable Materials: With Both Eyes Open from Cambridge University, which I also heartily recommend.

 - I do not Black Holes; the key to understanding the universe by Profs Brian Cox and Jeff Folshaw unless you already have some understanding.  But if you do, it is super.

- How Big Things Get Done by Bynt Flyberg is brilliant about projects and project management and I shall be wittering on about it at every opportunity in 2024.

- What If 2 by Randall Munroe adds some much needed whimsy to the big questions.

- I'd never actually read The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.  Much shorter than I imagined.  Things have changed in 150 years, but maybe not as much as you would expect.

- Death comes to us all, and All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell is an intriguing exploration of something most of us care to avoid thinking about. Incidentally her dad Eddie Campbell wrote and drew From Hell with Alan Moore.

- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnemann tells us that we have 2 modes (fast and slow) and how that changes our decision making processes, and our decisions.  TLDR Fast is the fight/flight/freeze type response, and until we can move beyond that we cannot make rational choices.  Helps explain a lot.  You may not need the whole book...

And finally Dollar Street from Hans Rosling's foundation helps us to really see what life is like for people around the world, rather than the perceptions we gain from TV.  Invaluable.  Take some of their quiz and see for yourself how you have an overly pessimistic view of the world. (or at least most people do - and there is still MUCH room for improvement).

Fiction:

- Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway was a great melding of SF and noir crime fiction.  He is a friend of William Gibson, and the son of John Le Carre.

Happy New Year 2024

 Well it is going to be an interesting year - with elections in the UK and USA (and many other countries too).

The global and European economies are far from strong, though the USA seems to be doing just fine.

So, and interesting time for procurement - and especially for Public Procurement in the UK as the Procurement Act 2023 comes into force in October 2024.  I shall be doing a lot of events around that, so please do keep an eye out and come along.

All the best to everyone.

As John Lennon said, let's hope it is a good one.