Pssst... the 2008 edition of the PMBA is live!

I don't get a lot of time to just sit and read - I tend to have an average of three books on the go at any one time and most of that time they are books related to industry, business, and personal development.  With so many books out there on various topics it's hard to know which ones to spend my valuable time on.  I came across PMBA (Personal MBA) by Josh Kaufman awhile back and wanted to share it with you.  It's fundamentally a reading list of 77 of the best business books currently in print.  The premise is that you may not be able to afford a MBA course but you can borrow books from the library like Good Will Hunting and put what you read into practice.

The new 2008 list is now out.  If you are already familiar with the previous list, check here for new additions.  Personally I'm glad to see 'Presentation Zen' on there as I love the website and the reappearance of 'Getting Things Done' which I try to live by.

If you are feeling rich you can buy the "PMBA Complete Business Library".  If you already have some of the books in the PMBA you can use the "Batch Book Buyer" to only select the ones you want.

Get out in the garden and enjoy a good read!

Virtual Teams - where to start?

The answer is in an excellent blog that has been going since November 2007 yet I've only recently discovered it. 
As they rightfully state:

'Leaders of a virtual team face many challenges when leading a virtual team, including team building, motivating and developing team members from afar, rewarding team members even when they have no authority over their pay, and facilitating shared leadership and team learning. When virtual teams don’t succeed in meeting these challenges, they run over budget and miss important deadlines besides creating frustration and dissatisfaction among team members.'

Their blog's mission is to help us learn about about virtual teams and what it takes to effectively lead them.  Over the months their articles reflect their own experience as well as commentary upon scientific research.  Subjects include virtual teams, leadership, collaboration, and computer-mediated communication (i.e., communication through email, instant messaging, discussion boards, video-conferencing, wikis, blogs, and virtual worlds).

Leading Virtually is well and truly on my subscription list; if you have an interest in virtual teams then I recommend you add it to yours!

ITIL v3 books - 1st impression amendments

I've seen comments in forums about issues with the 1st impression of the core v3 books and the inconsistencies across them.  I'd also heard that there were some amendments available but they aren't exactly widely advertised - if you can find the pointer on the OGC site please let me know!  So, if like me you bought a set at launch, be sure to download and print these amendments.

• Service Strategy
• Service Design
• Service Transition
• Service Operation
• Continual Service Improvement