Minutes of the Operations Management Task Group Held on 15th May 2003 at 2pm King's College London

Present:

Maureen Wade (Chair), Fiona Middleton, Carole Pickaver, Abigail Edwards, Kathleen Pounder, Caroline Holebrook (administrator)

Apologies had been received from Pete Ryan Action: Caroline to see if Pete can continue in light of his new responsibilities

2. Minutes of the last meeting - 8th January 2003

The minutes were accepted as an accurate record - note Carole's Auditor is an external consultant.

3. Matters arising

Sarah Deakin has left the group as she has a new job. A replacement will need to be recruited.

4. Seminars & Visits: Final arrangements and progress reports

Financial Planning for Middle & Senior Managers
Abigail was able to report this seminar would take place over two days on the 16th & 17th June at King's College Maughan Library. Larraine Cooper would be leading the event.

Communications Management
Sue Somerset was able to report that the event was due to be held on the 30th June. Melanie Stetter and Moria Bent were confirmed to speak. Sue hoped to have a representative from Investors in People and Philip Pothern from JISC.

Overhauling Efficiency & Effectiveness in your Service
Carole was happy to report that this event was now organised and Caroline would be advertising it shortly.

5. Steering Group Review

It was agreed that a mix of some repeats and some entirely new events would make up the new programme. The review had also identified that although the groups had coped well with the level of work it would be much easier if the groups were bigger. This would help cushion any members leaving or having to take a back seat if the pressure of work was too great. With this in mind, Caroline and Jean are putting out feelers to recruit extra members to the groups. A mix of levels is being sought to enable pairing opportunities between experienced and new members.

The review had decided that the Legal Compliance group should remain in its current form.

The review also identified the Chartership candidates as a source of membership. This could be a combination of full time members and co-opted members who are involved on an event-by-event basis.

Results of the Review Day

Votes for events: Space Planning 4 Project Management 5 Financial Planning 9 Disaster Planning 3 Communications Management 3 Overhauling efficiency & effectiveness 7

Visits

Venue Votes cast Bank of England - Museum 6 http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/Links/setframe.html London Assembly 6 http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/city_hall/index.jsp Birkbeck 2 http://www.bbk.ac.uk/news/milestone.html Millbank - Chelsea College of Art 1 New library

Other Seminar topics:

Bidding for Projects

Space Planning
The group felt that they would like to bring some new aspects to this event. Possible new areas are: Integrating collections Shelving layouts Stock moves

Project Management
The group felt that this would be worth running again but bearing in mind the feedback that had been received it would be better if it could be run over two days with more interactive sessions.

Bidding for Projects
This session could include speakers from funding bodies to help those making bids identify what they should be doing to make a successful bid. It would also be interesting to have speakers from organisations who have made successful bids. A case study style of presentation sharing experiences and giving guidance about the pitfalls of preparing bids.

Staffing as a resource
This event might focus on deploying staff resources that you have in the most effective way. "Activity Costing" is a "hot topic" at the moment that might be included in this session. Costing temporary and project staff would also come under this area. Lastly, "Skills Audits" of existing staff would be an area of possible discussion.

The group decided to await the out come of the CPD25 Training Needs Questionnaire before making a final decision on the programme.

6. Date of next meeting

17th July 2003 in G14 Maughan Library

CH 11th June 2003