Procurement Fundamentals - CIPS 13th January 2025

 Well, I don't have any more open courses in 2024 (but am pretty full up with in-house courses) so here is some information about my first open skills course of 2025.

I shall be running Procurement Fundamentals online on 13th January 2025.  A one day course, giving you (guess what?) the fundamentals of procurement (for both public and private sectors, services and manufacturing).

Hope you will join us.

full details here.

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 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.

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.

IChemE - What Engineers need to know about contracts - 14-16 June 2023

 We are running the popular What Engineers need to know about contracts course for the first time this year on 14-16 June 2023.  We are still running it online, but will at some point try face to face again.  Hopefully later this year.

The online course is 3 half days (mornings UK time).  It is based on our F2F course which is two full days, and so we had to strip it down a bit and go at pace when we did it in two half days.  To give us more time for discussion (and more content) we are expanding it to 3 half days.

Full details are at https://www.icheme.org/career/training/courses-a-z/what-engineers-need-to-know-about-contracts/

IChemE - What Engineers need to know about Contracts 29/30th November 2021

 The perennially popular course on what Engineers need to know about contracts (which could have the subtitle - but don't get taught on their Chem Eng courses) is being run online 29/30th November 2021.

Full details are here.

This is two half days on successive days, and assumes no previous knowledge or understanding of contracts or the law.  In fact that is rather the point.

The course is based on the contract law of England and Wales, but discusses other legal systems and so is (hopefully) more generally applicable around the world.

Hope to see you there.

Engineering Procurement - 9 & 12 November 2021

 We are restarting running the course on Engineering Procurement with IChemE. Details are here.

This is 2 half days with a few days in between to allow delegates to think and apply what we are discussing, and then bring it to the second session for more detailed discussion.

This is online, and based on the face to face one day course that we hope to one day return to running.

The topic is fairly self explanatory, but just in case we are looking at principles of procurement but related to the highly technically specified world of engineering (in general, but Chemical Engineering in particular).

Hope to see you there.

IChemE - What Engineers need to know about Contracts 23/24 November 2020

 

We are now confirmed to go ahead with the scheduled course in November.  This is 2 half days were we try to cover the content we do in 2 full days face to face.  We run it as 2 separate dates because we think that attention spans shrink a bit when online.  I know mine does.

Full details from IChemE here.

We are also getting an increasing number of requests to run this in-house, and of course we are able to do that (online at the moment, and face to face in future). This can be the full 2 day course or the 2 half days (including both on a single day, but that is not our preference.

BTW, there should be a short article from me in the Chemical Engineer soon (probably next year now) explaining why Engineers need to understand Contracts.

Possible future course on Re-starting supply chains.

We are already running some courses online, and probably about to start re-working some for the middle east market.  Looking at the courses made me wonder if there might be interest in a new course....

When things do start getting back to "normal", it will not be like flicking a switch.  A lot will have changed in the supply market, and particularly in the demand market.  Supply chains take a lot of work to make them Efficient, i.e. Lean.  Which means that they will not be Resilient.  So, our lovely smooth Lean supply chains are going to splutter into life rather than spring back perfectly formed.  There will be lots of blockages, broken links and delays.
Some businesses will be out of business - others will have changed their mode of operation.
Should we still buy from China?  Or should we develop local suppliers (who may be more expensive at first).
What did our contracts say about Force Majeure and what should they say for the future?

If you think there would be interest in such as course, please do let me know.  I am particularly interested in what you think should be covered, and whether we can do it in 1 day or will need 2.

Take care of you and yours.

Introduction to Public Sector Procurement.

I am running the Introduction to Public Sector Procurement for CIPS in Manchester on 26th June 2018.  Full details are here.

Next one after that will be Edinburgh on 28th September (adapted to Scottish public procurement regulations, but also suitable for English, Welsh and Northern Irish delegates).  Then 20th November in London.

The last 2 courses will also have a second day going into more detail about some of the less common procurement routes such as Competitive Dialogue - Applying the Public Procurement Regulations.

The London event will also have the third part of the programme - the Future of Public Procurement.

Alternatively you could go for a 3 day course combining all 3 days, with a bit of extra stuff, in the Public Sector Skills Programme which we like to call the Summer school in public procurement - London 7/9 August, Manchester 21-23 August, and Edinburgh 4-6 September.

Hope to see you at some (but not all).

CIPS Applying Public Sector Procurement Processes, Birmingham, 22 February 2017

My second CIPS open course of the year, will be the follow up to Introduction to Public Sector Procurement where we look in more detail at the procurement processes, and in particular the less common ones such as Competitive Dialogue, Innovation Partnership, and Dynamic Procurement Systems.

It is ideal to do as the second day of an introduction to Public Procurement, or to look at the less common processes.

Details are here.

CIPS Introduction to Public Sector Procurement, Birmingham, 21st February 2017

So the first of my CIPS open courses approaches at surprising speed, as 2017 rolls on.

So this is the course we have run in 2016, with the minor change of referring to the Selection Questionnaire (SQ) and European Single Procurement Document (ESPD Scotland) rather than PQQ.

Details are to be found here.

Course: Effective Purchasing, Tendering and Supplier Selection, 18-22 December 2016, Dubai

Last course of 2016 for me is in Dubai, and I hope that we shall give a good send off to what has been a rather dramatic year (to say the least).  I rather hope that 2017 will be less dramatic.  Let's be optimistic about it, anyway.

This might be my last Dubai course for some time (we are still looking at 2017 dates) so I hope that I shall see you there.
The course title rather says it all, but there is a full description and book form here.

After that is Christmas in the UK, and then 2017.  Bring it on.  Hope you have a good one.

Course: Advanced Purchasing Management, Amsterdam, 12-16th December 2016

So, just in time for Christmas, I am running a course on Advanced Purchasing Management in Amsterdam.

The more I work in business the more I think that management as a process is undervalued.  This course looks in particular at Procurement management, and moves it beyond transactional efficiency to something that really delivers value for the organisation.  At helps to prepare for the sort of economic shocks that seem to be all too common this year.

Details on the link above - Amsterdam will be damp but lovely at this time of year.  Hope to see you there.

Course: Tendering Procurement and Negotiation skills, Dubai 4-8 December 2016

I am currently in damp old London Town, but in a couple of weeks I shall be off to Dubai to run Tendering, Procurement and Negotiation skills.

We have run this a couple of times already this year and the reception has been good - well I know I would say that but it has.

It is a bit of a "Ronseal" course - it does what it says on the tin.

Dubai is great in December - particularly the shopping.  Even if the exchange rate has not been in favour of sterling recently.  Hopefully the course content will help get over the shock.  Hope to see you there.

Training Courses: CIPS Introduction to Public Sector Procurement and Applying EU Public Procurement Processes

On behalf of CIPS I am running two courses in November at the de Vere Venues Devonport House Hotel in Greenwich (shown above, during a promotion for the movie Thor: The Dark World - incidentally I was staying there at that time.  It is one of my favourite hotels.  My son tells me the movie is good too).

The courses are Introduction to Public Sector Procurement on Tuesday 8th November 2016, and Applying EU Public Procurement Processes on Wednesday 9th November 2016.

The titles are a bit long but do rather pass the Ronseal test of doing exactly what it says on the tin.

Ideally you should do day 1 before day 2, but it is not totally essential.  I think that the Introduction course is getting rather full but there is more space on the Applying EU processes course.

They are going to run again next year (no doubt updated a little), but not until 17/18 May 2017, in Manchester.

Training Course: CIPS Introduction to Public Procurement, Manchester, 29th June 2016

This is the one day Introduction to Public Procurement, covering all the basics.  Venue is the Radisson Blu at Manchester airport which is fairly easy to get to (there is a bus station, train station and it is just off the motorway).

People have liked it so far, so hope to see you there.

One day on Project Management in London

Tomorrow (21st October 2015) I shall be running a one day course in London for LMC covering some issues in Project Management.  A bit late for booking for this course (sorry) but they do have a lot of other interesting courses available at their website www.lmcuk.com

And now I shall retreat back to fuming about my bank declining my card for my hotel in London because "hotel transactions are sometimes fraudulent".  Indeed, but as a frequent traveler they are also rather essential.  My hotel took the opportunity to decline my early (discounted) booking in favour of more lucrative clients.  Luckily I have found a replacement that is only a bit more expensive. 

Short Notice: Managing Innovation

Very, very short notice (apologies) but we are re-running the Managing and Developing Innovation course at Junction 25 conference centre in Brighouse starting tomorrow 9th September and finishing on Thursday.  If you are based in Calderdale this course will be free to you.  Anyone else will have to pay (don't ask me how much - not a lot)

If you are interested then we would be delighted to see you.  Run for University of Bradford School of Management Knowledge Transfer Network on behalf of Business Growth Calderdale.