Putting theory into practice – report from the April meeting of the Professional Managers’ Committee

The Professional Managers' Committee met on April 20^th, our second meeting of the year. We can say with confidence and pride that our key projects are gaining momentum and we look forward to sharing how these develop, in the lead up to this year’s Professional Managers' Annual Conference and beyond.

To ensure these projects get the best possible support at this crucial stage, we have now put out a new call for committee members. A place on the committee is ideal for anyone with a business school professional management background who seeks to encourage and support high performance of professional services within business schools.  In this case, we are particularly looking for members who can give added weight to the voice of Scotland and the north of England within the committee, although anyone who feels they can make a strong contribution to the committee’s work would be very welcome to apply. For more information on the committee and the applications process, please contact Alex Rees at the Chartered ABS: Alexander.Rees@charteredabs.org

Our work bringing the professional managers' development matrix to life is in full swing, with three case studies for the matrix now published on the Chartered ABS website:

• Driving Organisational Change and Impact, by Dr Steve Gaskin
• Staff Training and Development Pathways, by Dr Phillipa Towlson-Mulbregt
• Aligning professional service staffs' performance and training with strategic goals, by Emm Johnstone

Further case studies from committee members are in the pipeline. We hope you find that our experiences of using the matrix in our own institutions illuminating and that you, in turn, can find new ways of using it to deliver outstanding results in your institutions.

On that note, we will once again be using the matrix as the basis for the themes of this year’s Professional Managers' Annual Conference, for which planning is steaming ahead. We hope using the core areas of professional competence as a framework will guide and inspire a wealth of interesting submissions and form a strong focus point for both days. If you are interested in making a submission for a presentation or poster, details are available here.

The committee is also developing various other pieces of work for the business school professional management community. The first is a resource about the General Data Protection Regulation, which will include our own experiences and examples to help inform and address concerns you might have about this key change in legislation. We are also considering developing a framework brief that encapsulates the factors that are important in ensuring the success of a quality administrative and operational support platform for the business school dean. Additionally work continues on developing our mentoring programme. We will keep you updated on our projects over the course of the year.

All questions, comments, suggestions on any aspect of the committee’s work gratefully received.

Dr Phillipa Towlson-Mulbregt, Chair, Professional Managers' Committee