Acknowledgements

No one ever writes a book alone. There is always a cast of friends, colleagues and supporters who contribute a great deal to the finished product – even if they don’t realise it. We certainly realised it on this specific project and we want to thank them for their valuable contributions.

For Dr Vicki Williamson, the many library staff members that she has had the pleasure of working with while in Australia and now here in Canada have helped to create the practical applications that made many of the principles and ideas contained in this book come to life, in real time. Each one helped to make these libraries better places to work in as well as better places for faculty and students to use on their learning journeys, as they completed their research and their studies.

In addition, her colleagues from the professional library community worldwide provided a significant amount of support and guidance through their interactions at professional conferences, various committee projects and stimulating conversations as many of these ideas were being formulated.

For Jim McKinlay, two of his business partners – Stephen Haines, Co-Founder of the Haines Centre for Strategic Management from San Diego, California, and Allan Bandt, a Global Partner of the Haines Centre and Director of Bandt Gatter and Associates from Perth, Australia – were major collaborators on the initial development of the People Plan Process. Steve has been the inspiration behind most of the work on Systems Thinking for which the Centre has become noted around the globe. These concepts, models and printed resources provide the foundation for all of the work that the members of the Haines Centre use in our consulting work. Allan has been actively applying and continuing to refine the content of the People Plan Process for more than ten years. His inquisitive insights and thought-provoking questions enable us to continue to keep this methodology fresh, focused and current, even as the field of human resources management continues to shift and change.

In addition, Jim has an expansive team of colleagues throughout the Haines Centre’s global network who are regular contributors to this continuing dialogue. This helps us to ensure that our work related to this field of human resource planning is very topical as well as very practical. Thank you for your input and your support.

Over the past ten years, there has been a long list of clients who have had some very challenging projects for us to work with, as we helped them to develop sound, workable plans that could be successfully implemented. These opportunities enabled us to put these concepts into practice, moving them from the intellectual realm to the everyday world of work, where reality reigns. Through their continuing support and efforts as they concentrated on creating high-performance organisations and became ‘employers of choice’, we saw these principles and practices evolve, grow and blossom. We applaud you for your faith and your unwavering commitment. We thank you deeply for helping us to see how People Planning can really contribute to making a significant difference for you, for your staff teams and, ultimately, for your customers and clients.

The support team at Chandos Publishing in Oxford, UK, was instrumental in helping to create the conceptual framework for this book – and obviously for its eventual publication. Dr Glyn Jones, Publisher, provided the spark that started this entire project. Then as the writing process unfolded, he continued to provide support and encouragement, even when we were unable to meet interim writing deadlines. Your patience helped us to overcome several huge barriers – Thank You. The technical support provided by Patrick Smith, Copy Editor, was extremely valuable in helping us to sharpen and refine the initial manuscript to prepare it for final approval. Helen Brown and Jonathan Davis, Editorial Assistants, provided critical support in guiding us through the development of the marketing plan for the distribution and circulation of the finished product. The suggestions and guidance from all three of you were so helpful as we worked our way through the labyrinth of the publishing process. Your support from the initial concept stage to the point where we could proudly clutch a printed version of this book in our hands was so important. It’s easy for us to say this now, as we heave a collective sigh of relief and satisfaction.

Last, but certainly by no means least, we want to acknowledge the proofing and formatting support provided by Colleen McKinlay as we wrestled to pull the various pieces of this project into one coherent manuscript that the editorial team could work with. Thanks for making it start to look like a real book.

To each and every one of you – a hearty “Thank You”! Without your contributions, we would not be writing these words today!