Wanted: Task masters Experts say more business schools need to introduce courses on project management to train people to lead teams, manage time, stick to budgets and control quality—all at the same time

Wanted: Task masters

Experts say more business schools need to introduce courses on project management to train people to lead teams, manage time, stick to budgets and control quality—all at the same time

There is a critical gap between the supply and demand of qualified professionals to handle projects, according to Mangesh Korgaonker, director general, National Institute of Construction Management and Research (NICMAR). This can be attributed to a gap in B-school curricula addressing the subject of project management. While this is disturbing, it can be a significant opportunity for Bschools, say experts.
WHAT IS PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Wikipedia describes project management as the discipline of planning, securing, managing and controlling resources to achieve specific goals. A project has a defined beginning and end, and is undertaken to meet unique goals to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast with regular business operations, which are repetitive and permanent activities to produce products or services.
In practice, the management of these two systems is quite different, and requires the development of distinct technical skills and management strategies. The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all the project objectives while honouring constraints like scope, time, quality and budget. “The severity of the lack of project management expertise is now being felt at the highest level of governance in India. The ministry of statistics and programme implementation has felt a strong need to introduce a full-time MBA type programme in project management,” says Goutam Dutta, professor at the IIM Ahmedabad.
Karuna Jain, Indian Institute of TechnologyBombay, says, “In 2009, a world report ranked project management as the thirdmost desired skill required by business professionals, behind only leadership/ negotiation and business analysis. Yet, B-schools in India do not offer project management coursework. Schools without such a programme may miss out on a major opportunity to make their mark in a booming profession and to grow their student populations.”

For this reason, the Project Management Institute formed the PMI India academic advisory group to monitor the progress of these courses in B-schools.
SURFACE COURSES
Currently, all the IIMs offer some elective courses, which are either directly named ‘project management’ or have other, related titles. In general management-oriented MBA programmes, project management-related subjects are included, but only touch the surface of the subject.
Only specialist courses cover a wider gamut of project management subject content and emphasis, but these are not commonly found in MBA programmes. Similarly, almost all the courses covered in technical colleges, especially those covering construction, engineering and information technology include project management, within their ambit at an introductory level, usually in the form of a module, according to the PMI group.
“By offering project management coursework— both as a stand-alone major and leading to other disciplines—schools can meet the global need for programmes in this field of study, as well as attract more students to their institutions,” says Rammohan Rao, professor at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. “Around the world, select institutions are choosing to differentiate their project management education programmes by seeking global accreditation.”