Advanced Management Skills

Author Archive

Several enterprising people recently booked onto our courses having secured 100% funding for course fees, qualifications and travel expenses.

Please email info@amskills.com for further information about these little known training grants which are available to independent consultants and those facing redundancy in the UK.

Venue: London Business School. Format: 45 minute interactive presentation + Q&A

Speaker: Ellen Miller, Faculty of Organisational Behaviour

Whoever you are and whatever your aspirations, the chances are that your success is closely linked to your professional networking skills.

I recently attended a number of events on the subject. This one was particularly interesting due to the following check list which I have adapted to make it more useful: Read the rest of this entry »

As a product category there is no doubt that children are woefully faulty. They don’t come with an instruction manual, a money back warranty or even an on/off switch. Kids have more faults than a Toyota and governments everywhere should immediately pass consumer legislation to protect the innocent and unwary!

Being a parent is a wonderful experience and we love our children to bits and yet, if we are truthful, we frequently find ourselves tearing our hair out with the difficulty of it all. Speaking personally, the younger generation are a major source of stress, up there with long hours, demanding clients and even the challenge of finding new business. Read the rest of this entry »

Pink but Perfect!

Many of us watch in amazement as our pension pots stagger from one financial crisis to the next barely keeping pace with inflation. We entrust our life savings to professional fund managers to little effect. Could we do better ourselves? John Kay thinks we can and this book is a great introduction to this.

John is a well regarded economics professor (ex-LBS where I attended his excellent lectures) and his position is based on sound economic principles. His starting point is that although there are a few very good investors (e.g. Warren Buffet and George Soros), most of us (including eminent economics and finance professors) are pretty rubbish. The randomness of the market may make us feel we are skilled in the short term but over the longer term we get fairly average returns. Read the rest of this entry »

VM/VE is one of the best management consulting methodologies ever developed. Originally formulated in the late 1940s by Lawrence Miles at General Electric and refined by many practitioners over the years, VM/VE is a powerful problem solving system designed to maximize the value of products, services, projects and business processes.

VM/VE is an evidence based methodology featuring team working, sense making, optioneering, stakeholder management and benefits realization. Skilled value practitioners are able to apply the framework to solve most organizational problems.

Our courses are registered VM/VE modules:

• The Professional Consultant is a registered Foundation Course in VM/VE
• The Lean Operations Consultant is a registered Advanced 1 Course in VM/VE
• The Strategy Consultant is a registered Advanced 2 Course in VM/VE
• Booking Form (Microsoft Word Format)

The European Standard BS EN 12973:2000 Value Management was developed to keep EU economies competitive in global markets and the European Training and Certification scheme was developed within which our courses are fully approved. Certified value practitioners (PVMs) are registered to practice throughout Europe.

Unlike many consulting methodologies, VM/VE is designed to be future-proof and it constantly evolves to incorporate new thinking and innovation. You can find practitioners working in most areas of commerce, public sector and even in leading not-for-profit organisations. Contact us for more information.

Consulting Courses – (ELCAS Provider 2653 )

Are you looking to strengthen your career both inside and outside the armed forces?

Many people are now choosing consultancy as a route to interesting, well paid and high status jobs both within the armed forces and beyond. In fact numerous service leavers have attended our ELCAS approved courses as part of their resettlement programme. This is because consultancy offers you the opportunity to: Read the rest of this entry »