Dissertation Projects - Why are they the way they are?

Why is there a Project in the PGEMP course curriculum ?

Please note that all problems and issues you will find in your managerial life will not have a neatly defined solutions that you can find in the textbooks. You will be required to solve original problems related to your business in an original way. You will have to become an internal consultant to your boss or sometimes become even your own consultant because you are the boss! The project is designed to give you feel for doing this on your own in the context of your business.

The Project is compulsory / important in passing PGEMP course

We have seen that many of us who have gone through the traditional education in India are likely to assume that examinations are of paramount importance and may consider assignments and projects as being of secondary importance. This is not so in our program and in fact, as a matter of principle, we put a lot of importance on CONTEXTUAL CUSTOMIZATION.

We give only 50% to the marks to the marks you get in your examination and the remaining 50% go towards seeing how you apply this knowledge to your own workplace. It would have been very easy for us to just conduct examinations and assign marks - as many institutes do - but we choose the difficult route of contextual customization. We need to evaluate thousands and thousands of assignments every month - it is not easy.

4 stages in your project

As far as the Project is concerned, please note that, among other things, you need to pass the final stage of the project in order to become eligible to get the PGEMP certificate. The 4 stages you need to go through - to come to the final stage - are pretty common sense and they are as follows

1. The 1st stage is our approval of your "project title". A title means a brief summary of what is the importance of your project to your company, what you already know about it,  what you plan to find out, and how. This approval can happen on e mail but you need a clear approval in writing from the PGEMP office. Before PGEMP office does so, we will need a confirmation from your mentor in writing that s/he approves the way you have defined the title.
2. The 2nd stage is our approval of your "Proposal defense". This means you have had a personal meeting with your allocated faculty guide when you are on campus - either during your regular visit or you may have to come specially for this meeting if you happen to be based out of Mumbai. Note that, soon after your title is approved by us, we will assign a suitable expert from our side as your guide and thereafter he will be your single contact for inputs and approvals. A "proposal defense" is a meeting between your faculty guide and you where your activity / method / steps / time plan is finalized between you, your company mentor and the faculty guide. For us, the documentary evidence that "proposal defense" has happened is the "proposal defense form" signed jointly by you and your faculty. The faculty guide will makes notes on the form. You are required to incorporate the notes and suggestions in your further work. Please do not undertake any primary research activity unless it is explicitly approved through the proposal defense stage. If your mentor is not present for this meeting we will assume that s/he is in complete agreement with the proceedings of the proposal defense meeting as reflected in the proposal defense form.  
3. The 3rd stage is the "Project defense" (also called as VIVA VOCE) meeting that happens after you have completed your primary work and used the information by submitting a draft project report in writing. A PPT deck is not acceptable. It is expected that the report submitted is completely consistent with the title as approved at stage 1 and also with the notes and suggestions at stage 2 on proposal defense form. VIVA is  a  personal meeting with your allocated faculty guide when you are on campus - either during your regular visit or you may have to come specially for this meeting if you happen to be based out of Mumbai. A "VIVA" is a meeting between your faculty guide who verbally examines your entire effort and gives you marks. It is possible that your faculty guide may want you make some last minute changes. These will be reflected in the VIVA form signed jointly by you and your faculty. 
4. The 4th and the last stage is when you incorporate these in your submission of the final report. 

Please note that you cannot proceed to the next stage in the above 4 stages unless the previous stage is completely done.

What happens after the 4 stages are over ? A lot can happen !  

Technically you do not need to do anything further as far as the course is concerned. But we have seen in the past that sometimes the projects are so good that it is a shame if they do not form a body of knowledge for the rest of the world. It is possible that the faculty guide or some other professor from the Institute may want to do so and   convert your project into academic materials like a case or a paper. If you help the professor to do so, s/he will surely give you a suitable acknowledgement. Do not worry if you are concerned about sensitive and critical information going out. First of all, everything is not confidential but we can certainly mask such data when it goes out. 

Regarding Titles

The purpose of the title is NOT to attract readers to read it.  Do not worry if the it does not look "short, sweet and attractive" like a magazine article title. A title can be even up to one page in length and must SIMULTANEOUSLY indicate 3 things 

1. FIELD WORK : What new and original  field work you will do in a specific and time-bound fashion. It is expected that you should spend at least 100 hours in doing this original work.  
2. BUSINESS BENEFIT : A statement of specific and time-bound business benefit your project will deliver to your employers in a way that the Business Managers can be excited about. It can be about increasing sales, getting better price, reducing cost, improving efficiency or effectiveness etc.
3. KNOWLEDGE CREATION : Your project should result into some knowledge getting created. Merely copying, stating what is already known is not acceptable. 

It is very likely that a project taken up by your company / department is NOT suitable. This may be due to  the fact that a project taken up by your company / department would need the effort of several people over a long period of time - whereas the project you choose needs to be based on YOUR effort over a period of 3-6 months.  

Examples of bad project titles

"Towards operational excellence in our quality control department".   It has no clear and specific business benefit, it does not indicate what original work you will do and it also does not say what specific new knowledge discovery will take place. This sounds like a good title for a magazine article but is poor project title.

"To increase the sale of XYZ in UK".  It spells the business benefit but not clearly. For example, to increase the sale of XYZ by 40% in 3 years will need very different actions than increasing the sale by 150% in 2 years. It does not indicate what is the original work. It also does not show what new knowledge will get created.

"To migrate the data from existing server to an outsourced data center" may be assigned to you by your company but it cannot become the subject of dissertation because it does not involve discovering anything original. It is a "doing" project and not a "learning" project.

“Building a chemical plant for a client at Nasik” is an important project for your company - but this is too large a project for you to take up - because the project will need contribution from many people from your company over a couple of years !

Examples of bad project titles converted into good

See the Nasik project mentioned above. If you want, you can take up a part of this project which you can attempt and complete individually over a few months.  For example your title can be "To conduct depth interviews of 10 site engineers to identify what causes significant delays (requiring payment of penalty) in the projects undertaken and then to study records relating to top 3 items mentioned by each, and finally to conclude what the company could have done at the policy level to minimize these delays”.  Why is this an acceptable title ? Because (a) it describes original work : interviewing engineers, sifting through records, making conclusions (b) it has a specific outcome : recommended policy changes based on research findings (c) it is linked to business : minimization of delays leads to reduction in payment of penalty (d) it is doable : you can plan and complete the project individually over a few months.

“Changing ill-performing distributors in UP within 3 months” could be an important project for your company but not acceptable as a project by us. The reason is that there is no originality, no research possibilities and no learning outcomes. On the other hand, “Structured interviews of  20 discontinued distributors and comparing their responses with 20 high-performing distributors in UP to create a checklist of criteria for appointing future distributors” is acceptable because (a)  Original work : structured interviews of 40 distributors in UP (b) Specific outcome : checklist of criteria for appointing distributors in future (c) Link to business : poor performing distributors bring down the sales growth rate.

Use the checklist of 5 items for titles

• Is my linked to business benefits in a time bound and specific manner? For example : "Policies that help reduce project delays reduce the penalties for late completion". Currently penalties eat away 15% of the net profit of the division.
• Have I done some work already before deciding on the title? For example : "I studied the profitability of my company vis-a-vis our competitors and found that  we are paying far more penalties due to late completion. As much 5% of the net profit of the division gets wasted as a result".
• Have I decided what original work I will do in the chosen area? For example : "I will study logged records of 10 projects done by the division to identify top 3 reasons fof significant delays  and then conduct ABC analysis to select "vital few" reasons which need to be tackled. From this I will select one reason and use root cause analysis to make recommendations at policy level."
• What do I expect to happen as a result of my findings For example : "My aspiration is that the penalties should come down from 15% of PAT to 5% of PAT.
• Have I considered what will my project report consist of ? For example : "My report will consist of (a) my workings of calculating the possible financial impact of what I am planning to address (b) my analysis of the records of last 10 projects done by the division (c) how I identified and ranked the reasons for delays (d) root cause analysis of one or two major reasons for delays (e) how I arrived at policy level recommendations based on "d".

In this particular case, an appropriate "title" will be "To try to bring down the cost of penalty for project delays from current 15% of PAT to 5% of PAT - through my original work of studying site logs of 10 projects done by my division and conduct an ABC analysis of the main causes of delays - and subsequently to conduct root cause analysis of main reasons - and make policy recommendations to management which will result into reduction of delays".