2007 is the special year when Britain is commemorating 200 years from the abolition of the salve trade. Despite the 200 years that have passed since William Wilberforce managed to pass the anti-slave trade law through the British parliament, slavery is still a big part of the social and economical life of people worldwide. The UK is not an exception. A recent study on Modern Slavery in the UK uncovered that:

“Modern slavery exists in the UK in various forms. All exhibit the common elements of the exploitative relationship which have always constituted slavery: severe economic exploitation; the absence of a framework of human rights; and control of one person over another by the prospect or reality of violence. Coercion distinguishes slavery from poor working conditions.”
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“Some UK-based companies, knowingly or not, rely on people working in slavery to produce goods which they sell: complex sub-contracting and supply chains, managed by agents elsewhere, often obscure this involvement.” Read the rest of this entry »

On May 8, the Sunnyvale Mercury News published an article entitled “Sunnyvale officer sentenced in human trafficking scheme”.

The very first sentence comes to create confusion:

A former police officer was sentenced to 366 days in federal prison for smuggling women into the country from South Korea, charging them tens of thousands of dollars in bogus immigration fees, and forcing them to pay off debts by working as prostitutes.

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Following are some recommendations I usually make to organizations in order to improve their evaluation process. I have structured them in a prioritized order.

• Make the evaluation process more participatory. This would imply the involvement of the stakeholders and interested parties in all phases of the evaluation:

• design – the staff holds critical information about the program evolution, so it is important to organize brainstorming sessions in all offices (i.e. during a staff meeting) to determine the issues which should be included in the evaluations, the tools which would work best for their sites as well as indicators which could be measured;
• gathering and analyzing data – with a more clear understanding of the goals and uses of the evaluation, as well as a sense of belonging, the stakeholders could better explain these to the participants, and thus gather more accurate information;
• concluding and making recommendations – a final brainstorming should take place after the data is analyzed, so as to involve staff members and other stakeholders in elaborating recommendations for the program, as well as drawing conclusions on the future of the program.

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This is a review of the multimedia training course on Key Skills in Project Management Fundamentals (FMF), the equivalent of 2 days classroom based training. This is a subjective review based on my personal understanding of the outlined concepts.

I was very impressed with the content of the course, covering all the basic principles of project management, such as Product Based Planning, Activity Based Planning, Scheduling, Resource Management, Monitoring and Control Risk Analysis, Quality Control, etc. Even the most complex topics are presented in a basic way, so that beginners and experienced managers can easily get a grasp of the concepts. Read the rest of this entry »

Many managers these days are conducting capacity assessments for their organizations. Such an analysis is a great organizational development resource. In addition, capacity assessment tools can be used by any individual to analyze their life mission, to strategically plan for the future, and manage the daily activities. Read the rest of this entry »