Project Management Education in India: A Business School Perspective

The objective of this paper is to emphasize the importance of the formal well-planned education programs for project management, particularly by the elite business schools, in the context of national economic development programs on hand in India.

The authors’ emphasis the need for formal project management education programs in India, … read moreparticularly the role to be played by the elite management education institutions. The need is based on the well recognized benefits accruing from project management: better planning & utilization of resources and increased effectiveness & efficiency in meeting the project objectives.The need for Project Management discipline is perhaps greater than when the nation dreams to rebuild itself into a new, prosperous and equitable socio-economic order. India is passing through just this phase – with projected expenditure for infrastructure projects alone to be Rs. 172,500 crores in 2005-06, a comparable investment in the private sector, and an explosively rising demand for project managers in the ITES sector expanding by leaps & bounds.

The authors’ case for either a full PM focused MBA program or at least inclusion of project management as one of the core subjects rather than an elective rests on the following arguments:

Managing projects effectively needs competency development, which only a full time MBA program focused on project management could accomplish well.

MBA core programs can impart systematically organized knowledge and sound qualitative and quantitative analysis tools for PM discipline to its graduates. Organizations would prefer to entrust their critical projects to a well-trained project management professional from a reputed institution of available.
Ajay Parasrampuria and Gautam Desai

ABSTRACT:

The objective of this paper is to emphasize the importance of the formal well-planned education programs for project management, particularly by the elite business schools, in the context of national economic development programs on hand in India.

The authors’ emphasis the need for formal project management education programs in India, particularly the role to be played by the elite management education institutions.  The need is based on the well recognized benefits accruing from project management: better planning & utilization of resources and increased effectiveness & efficiency in meeting the project objectives. The need for Project Management discipline is perhaps greater than when the nation dreams to rebuild itself into a new, prosperous and equitable socio-economic order. India is passing through just this phase - with projected expenditure for infrastructure projects alone to be Rs 172,500 crores in 2005-06, a comparable investment in the private sector, and an explosively rising demand for project managers in the ITES sector expanding by leaps & bounds.

The authors’ case for either a full PM focused MBA program or at least inclusion of project management as one of the core subjects rather than an elective rests on the following arguments:

• Managing projects effectively needs competency development, which only a full time MBA program focused on project management  could accomplish well.
• MBA core programs can impart systematically organized knowledge and sound qualitative and quantitative analysis tools for PM discipline to its graduates .
• Organizations would prefer to entrust their critical projects to a well-trained project management professional from a reputed institution if available.

For a comparison, the authors briefly describe the global scenario for formal project management education. In U.S.A, a large number of colleges and universities offer undergraduate, post-graduate and some even doctoral level programs in project management. A similar trend for increased emphasis on PM education is seen in all South-East Asian countries. The real eye-opening issue in this comparison is that the PM movement in China seems far more robust than India. China has 49 REPs accredited by PMI compared to 23 in India. China has already started to set up education programs for developing the corps of 600,000 trained PMPs it expects to need by 2008. PMI has also responded by setting up there a PM certification center, its first center outside the USA.

Keywords:

Project Management, Management Education, MBA, India, China, and Southeast Asia, PM Growth,

Please Note: PMI, PMP and PMBOK are all registered trademarks of Project Management Institute, USA.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT EDUCATION IN INDIA

THE RATIONALE FOR FORMAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT EDUCATION PROGRAMS IN INDIA

“The real purpose of business is to promote Innovation in the society”, according to the Management Guru, Peter Drucker.”

Innovation involves thinking of new revolutionary ideas and providing to the society in general the products and services based on these ideas. Such fructification of ideas into products and services involves a systematic, well-thought and well-planned initiative and endeavor. These initiatives take the shape of a project, as they are usually time bound with definite objectives to achieve. Project management is a discipline - the languages of implementation, which improves speed and efficiency, converting ideas into new products, new services, or new physical set-ups in the most cost-effective manner while serving the purpose for which they were visualized.

The need for PM discipline is never greater than when the nation dreams to rebuild itself into a new, prosperous and equitable socio-economic order. India is passing through just this phase. In the recent budget speech, the honorable finance minister announced the gross budgetary support to the plan (GBS) to be Rs. 172,500 crores in just one year, 2005-06. The private investment would also be of comparable size. There would be projects for building roads, houses and buildings, bridges, and railway lines. Also, for providing electricity; water, irrigation, and other infrastructural facilities like transportation and mass communication systems. Projects would also include setting up the factories for producing a vast variety of consumer goods and for providing efficient, cost effective and prompt services in the banking and financial services sectors. Defense and space related projects. With such large number of mega projects in the pipe line, formal, efficient and effective management of projects, which is basic to all economically dynamic as well economically developing societies, assumes great importance.

In the infrastructure area alone, the current Indian Government’s goals are:

• To build roads to connect all villages having a population of over 1000 persons;
• To construct 60 lakh additional houses for the poor;
• To provide drinking water to the remaining 74,000 habitations not covered so far;
• To reach electricity to remaining 1,25,000 villages and offer electric connection to 2.3 crore households;
• To give telephone connectivity to the remaining 66,882 villages.

Such gigantic investments for nation building require a corps of knowledgeable project management professionals.

There is a similar demand for manpower to sustain the growth in ITES sector.  Conservative estimates are that, in the ITES sector currently employs 1 million people and this number is expected to double by 2008.  According to a recent article published in Asian Business, the biggest worry for most in the ITES is the shortage of managers. Currently, the industry needs 15% to 20% more mid-level executives than it can muster.   Assuming 10% of the employed population in ITES industry will be professionals with the role of a project manager/leader, there is a need for an additional 125,000 project managers by 2008 in this sector alone.  At the same time there is a need to train a good number of existing project managers to improve their PM capabilities. As a senior manager in a leading Indian IT firm points out, “Most Project Managers in IT industry are glorified technologists, who have become PM’s by accident.” An urgent course correction is needed in this area.