Science of Strategic Project Decisions: IIT Bombay Webinar

Okay, I see quite a few participants here but no messages, no chats are coming in. I hope everyone is able to access uh the feature. Anyway, um we can um get started with the session. We have a very uh super you know informative uh uh next 1 hour planned for you. So please to stay tuned. Uh before we begin um couple of ground rules for the session. Oh uh we are live on our social platforms as well. So we'll uh once again a welcome to everyone uh joining us on YouTube and yes. Okay. So a couple of ground rules for the session that we request everyone to follow. Um number one please drop any questions that you have in the Q&A box. Uh you will be able to see the Q&A box in the navigation bar. Please click on that and uh drop us your questions. We might keep getting a lot of messages in the chat box. You might end up missing yours. So, please use the Q&A box effectively. Any question that you want answered by the experts that we have here, please drop them in the Q&A box. Uh secondly, avoid sharing any external links or personal details in the chat box and keep conversations only relevant to the topic. And finally, if you would like an attendance or a participation certificate, uh please stay tuned till the end of the session. We will be launching a poll at uh um the end of the webinar um where you can enter your details for the attendance certificate. Okay, great. Um so now uh let me start with uh welcoming and introducing the speakers for the session. Uh first is we have Dr. Priyang Singha. He's an assistant professor at IIT Bombay and his work sits at the intersection of fields that are uniquely combined in project management education uh which is industrial engineering, supply chain analytics and decision sciences. Um his research spans uh network optimization, apply probability and logistics and he's published uh in a lot of top academic journals. Um uh professor it is it is a pleasure to have you here and uh let me also take this opportunity to welcome Dr. Satu Chhatraati. He is a program manager at IEO. Um he spearheads the design launch and end toend delivery of certificate and EPGD courses. Um and he also has a PhD in chemical engineering uh which uh you know uh uh from IIT as well. So he blends datadriven process improvements with compelling science communications to deliver high impact learning experiences. Uh it's it's uh once again a very very um you know warm welcome to both of you. Um it's great to have you here. It'll be great if you can you know if there's anything you want to add on to the introductions and say you hi to your participants. Uh you get prof. No nothing to add from my side. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. So thank you uh for the introduction and let's get uh going. Let's start the webinar. Okay, perfect. So here's a quick quick look at how we've structured the next uh 1 hour. Uh we're going to move uh um you know we're going to cover quite a lot today. We'll start by um you know understanding uh IIT Bombay's educational outreach program. Um because understanding the institution um behind this course will also be crucial. Then we'll move on to uh the problem statement which is why do most project decisions fail at scale. Uh from there we get into the heart of today's conversation. The science of uh strategic project decisions. What frameworks, what tools, what mental models disting distinguish a great PM from a great strategic leader. We'll then deep dive into IIT Bombay's specific approach to teaching this. Uh look at the curriculum in the applied projects you'll build and close with what uh learning outcomes look like. Uh there's a lot to cover and a lot to learn as well. So uh let's uh get into it. Um I'm going to start with a quick word uh about who's behind this program which is IIT Bombay's educational outreach division. Um uh and um no uh other you know better than Dr. Sakatru to take us through uh the details of this. Uh Dr. Sakatru over to you. Thanks uh thanks Ana. Uh so hello and good evening everyone and uh very nice to have you on board uh for this uh webinar interactive webinar uh on strategic project management. So this is a course that we are I Bombay is launching with uh simply learn and uh I want to speak about the education outreach unit at IIT Bombay. So briefly the educational outreach uh unit at IIT Bombay uh its primary mandate is to you know take the world-class uh excellence educational excellence that IIT Bombay has and uh spread it across at beyond its walls. uh it's it it delivers you know outreach education executive uh educations uh certificate courses e-graduate diplomas uh corporate training programs capability building programs all of these are uh under the mandate of the educational outreach and in this regard we have uh we have identified that project management or strategic project management as we call it this is an important area uh and we have esteemed faculty member Dr. Priyanka Sahu who who is an expert in this field and with him we have uh planned and designed this curriculum meticulously and to deliver uh to you know working professionals uh as well as fresh graduates and people with work experience who want to you know upskill in the field of project management. So please feel free to you know visit the educational outreach office uh website uh where you will get more such information and looking forward to you know have a lot of uh participants coming for this current. So thank you. Thank you so much uh Dr. Satad. I think that uh sets the context for the s section uh perfectly. Um okay so let me start uh with um you know a piece of news. Uh according to a survey done by the project management institute $1 million is found to be wasted every 20 seconds by organizations worldwide because of poor project performance. Um let that like you know let that sink in for a moment. Now here's what's even more striking. 85% of executive leaders surveyed believe their organizations are effective at delivering projects to achieve strategic results. 85%. There is a massive perpetual gap here. Leaders believe things are working. The numbers say something very different. So this disconnect between confidence and reality is one of the most important things today that we're going to explore. And it's um not unique to one industry or one country. So uh we have uh professor Priyank here who is going to take us uh through um the you know first two segments where we're going to discuss the science behind uh strate strategic project decisions. Um professor we just saw uh like one striking data point already regarding the project failures. So what is your take on this? You can um you know uh over to you. You can um continue forward with the session. Okay. Thanks An. So uh there are two primary reasons for it. The first one is that uh the project uh projects are usually uh one-off undertakings. Uh usually what uh if if we want to compare a project with uh standard industrial environment, we come across the industrial products which have some sort of a repeatability in the process and uh so so the same kind of a product is being produced in the industrial environment. But but when we look at the projects are mostly unique in nature. So even when we feel that a same sort of a uh for example a same sort of a bridge is being uh uh you know constructed and so on but is still the projects uh that that two projects will be quite different uh because there will be different stakeholders that will be coming in the infrastructure uh the total environment that will be there. So one aspect is that projects are the unique endeavor. So it is very difficult to anticipate and control the strategic variables associated with the project and during the planning phases these variables are very uncertain and there is no uh historical data which could be used in order to estimate those problem parameters. The second aspect is what something which we can control because what we tend to do in the standard conventional project management courses is that we focus uh too much on the execution part. Uh the other thing is that we we try to uh do the planning of the project management through very some very basic standard uh logical models uh and some qualitative models which tend to ignore the uncertaintities that are associated with the decision-m in the initial phases and it also tend to ignore the interdependencies between the stakeholders and the processes. So these models are not very exhaustive. they are not very comprehensive which which can actually uh you know completely digest the complexities of the project. So because we tend to use these simpler models so there is usually a cascading effect uh which happens in the later part of the project where we see these kind of a failures. So these failures are not anecdotal in any sense they are you know systematic failures if if I can say that because due to the poor planning these failures are you know cascaded. uh so there is a second this second aspect is something which we can control by better theory and better practice of the project management and that is what we'll try to do over here in this uh course uh so more specifically we can look at the root causes here uh so for example uh if I were to you know speak more specifically about the issues so the first one is that risk treated as a register item and not as a strategic variable so what I mean what we mean to say here is that Even when we recognize that there is a risk associated with completing a particular stage of the project. So it is usually recorded as a register item it means that uh we we just record it for the purpose of recording it that there is a risk associated with this. But we don't tend to model that risk into our you know planning phases. So the models are not good enough to incorporate uh the risk in their totality. how the risk can be incorporated into those model that is something which we need to look at. The other thing is decision framed around optimism bias and not probabilistic thinking. So even when we say that uh uh for example if we say that the cost of a particular activity is uh expected to have some probability distribution still we tend to for for the simplistic for our simplistic analysis we tend to ignore uh the variance of the distribution and we tend to assume that the most likely uh cost of a particular activity is something what we are going to realize. So we are more optimistic about the problem parameters values rather than be more realistic and think in the in terms of probabilistic uh probabilistic modeling. Uh so that is another reason. Uh then tradeoff uh blindness when the scope cost and the benefit objectives compete. This is an important thing because mostly in a very generic way the projects can be so there are three type of performance measures that we can uh talk about for any project. So there is a cost dimension, there is a scope dimension and there is uh basically the quality dimension if you can say. So uh usually it happens that these these dimensions have a trade-off between each other. So if I want to increase the scope of the project, it will only happen if I uh if I increase some cost right. So if I'm tending to so sometimes if there is a cost overrun so I tend to reduce my cost without realizing that if I will try to reduce my cost in the later phases of the project it would lead to the reduction in the scope also. So the this trade-off is not uh always realized by the project manager and it is not very meticulously uh you know incorporated in the modeling. Uh the fourth one is the absence of the system level visibility in the cross functional program. So rarely it will happen that a organization will only be undertaking a single project. So usually a portfolio of the projects is undertaken. uh so the problem reduces to the resource allocation across different of uh different of these projects and uh the standard project management approach is to only look at a single project. So we tend to so there is a project manager assigned to a particular project and we the standard project management approach is that we tend to improve the performance of a single project but uh we don't have a system level thinking where we say that how the performance of one project is going to affect the performance of others and how these things are interled. So that is also a very important reason and as we see the project organizations are becoming more and more complicated. So this particular point is becoming uh more paramount. Uh the fifth one is stakeholders forecast and the business cases built to win approval not reflect reality and uh this is a very practical standpoint. So whenever let us say even without within the organization there are two teams. Let us say there is a quality team uh and let us say there is a IT team. So IT team wants to implement the IT project and the quality teams wants to implement a quality improvement program. Now both the team wants to win a project tender. So what they will tend to do is uh they will try to overstate the project outcomes that will be achieved by the quality team or by the uh by the uh IT team just so that they can win over the project. So the idea is that when we start the project, we start with more unrealistic outcomes that it is expected to achieve and this is only realized as we proceed further in the project and then sometimes because of this reason we have to abandon the project when we see that there is not much of a strategic alignment and much of the value which is expected to be achieved from the uh yeah Ana you can change the slide. So yeah so u what we tend what we'll try to focus here is that the execution focus project management and the strategic leader. So it can be uh it can be well understood by these examples that are given here. So let us say there is a milestone slip in the project. What a milestone slip means that uh let us say there are certain stages of the project has been achieved and after a particular stage let us say that certain milestones would have been expected to achieve. Uh so the milestone could be in terms of the quality it could be in terms of the cost uh it could be in terms of the scope that has been achieved. Now uh more frequently what will happen in many stages the projects will miss a milestone. So uh execution focused project management would say that how do we recover the schedule because we are too much focus on actually honoring the schedule. So if there are some schedule overruns in the initial stages of the project, we'll try to recover it in the later stages. That becomes our core objective. However, the strategic viewpoint of this entire problem would be to diagnose that why does this slip actually happen? what is what is this slip signal tell us about the original assumptions that we made about the project and whether this lip signal uh is is can be used to predict that how my next stages of the project are expected to pan out. So based on that we are trying to take a more holistic and a strategic decision not just you know trying to stick to the schedule. Uh so for example uh the other example is uh the budget is over spent. So if there is let us say a cost overrun. So the idea is that if there is a cost overrun can we cut the scope so to recover the cost overrun that we have already had in the initial stages of the project. The the strategic viewpoint of this problem would be uh whether the original budget is still a right constraint. Right? So for example, let us say as we go through the project, we realize that the value that we I expected out of that project. Now the value is basically better for the for a particular project because projects are a large undertaking and they span for about sometimes 10 to 15 years also. So let us say you are in the middle of the project delivery and you realize that the total value of the project is more. So then you'll not be focused too much about the cost overruns and you will say that even if the cost overruns continue to happen in the later stages also is still the project has a good amount of value. So instead of trying to stay within the envelope I'm always going to uh evaluate that whether a larger value can be created and if it is can be greater then probably cost overrun is not going to matter much for me. So for example a stakeholder pushes back. So this is one another viewpoint of the project management where we say that project for a project there are different stakeholders which come together to execute a particular project. Now each of these stakeholders have their uh you know uh have their local objectives to be fulfilled. Right? Now as the project proceeds uh some of the stakeholders might realize that uh the project is not fetching the kind of a value which they actually thought it would right. Uh so what they will do is they will start resisting right. Uh so so there will be a push back from the stakeholder side and what the uh operations view if the project manager is keeping an execution focus. So they will try to manage that resistance try to tell the people that okay uh uh in maybe in the later stages there will be a more strategic alignment so you can stick to the schedule of the project. So the idea is just to do the firefighting here. What are strategic viewpoint of the project of this particular problem would be? How does this what does this resistance tell us about the whose interest is the project actually serving? So probably as we proceed further so we might realize that the project is now actually serving the strategic objectives of very small number of uh stakeholder. So probably a strategic realignment needs to be done. So an uh an execution focused project management will not focus on their uh strategic realign. Finally, if let us say a new opportunity arises, the execution focused project management is simply going to ignore because that is going to be out of the scope. But a strategic focus uh focused project management will say that uh if there is an additional opportunity then what is the additional cost of pursuing it and if there is a value in it. So even uh even after the project has is started to implement still we can change the scope still we can uh you know change the schedule. So this is the basic difference between an execution focused project management and a strategic leader. Uh so these these two are the different approaches to the project management as you and as you can uh uh easily see that the strategic uh focus project management is more useful when we take the take the entire projects as uh holistically right. Uh okay so uh next slide. Yes. So this is just a so I think we have some question from so punit do you have any question we have something in chat or I can just continue okay anyways right so uh this is just a uh a very simple a broad level flow of how strategic decisions are made in the project management uh so first we do the decision gate analysis. So what is basically a decision gate? We'll talk more about this in the course but the idea here is very simple that there are certain critical junctures of the project right. So when you when you arrive at that juncture you tend to reassess your project deliverables. You tend to see that what is the total cost that you have incurred what is the total value that you have created. So whether there have been any cost overrun whether you have been able to achieve uh uh actually the amount of value that you wanted to right so decision gate analysis actually tells you uh so it is a strategic points uh where we need to re-evaluate the project that whether and sometimes it happens that at a decision gate we realize that probably the project is not fetching us some good value so it is a good idea to either halt the project or or completely dump it so That is the idea behind the decision gate analysis. And then we have uh something called which is the fuzzy logic or the expert system. So sometimes it happens that uh let us say that you want to talk about the stakeholder influence. You want to quantify stakeholder uh influence and let us say there are three categories. The stakeholder influence is either high, it is medium or low in a particular project. Right? So as you as you start now since uh the projects are one-off activities and once you start with a project uh there is a very little information that is available to you. So even you don't have a very complete information of what a particular stakeholder influence would be in a project whether it would be a high it would be medium it would be low. So a non-fuzzy approach to this problem would be that you have to very strictly classify the stakeholder influence either into these three categories. A fuzzy approach to this uh this this problem would be that I can define the membership function where it can say that uh the strategic influence for a particular uh stakeholder influence sorry for a particular stakeholder is 0.7 in the high and 0.3 in the medium. Right? So it is a fuzzy way of categorizing and uh giving a quantitative figure to the stakeholder influence. As as we proceed further as we get more and more information we can more precisely uh define these problem parameters uh stakeholder influence in this case. Uh so the idea here is that once we start integrating it start integrating the uh the modeling uh frameworks of the project management with a fuzzy approach. We tend to uh uh we tend to address these kind of issues where the uncertaintities are present. Uh we also tend to use expert systems. So expert systems are in a very crude sense they are the precursors to the a IML based method. So basically when we talk about a IML they basically tend to learn from the uh data from the they they tend to learn the functional relationship between the variables from the data. Uh in contrast when we talk about the expert system these are the rule based systems. So it says that if something happens if this is the condition then this is the decision that you are required to take right. So an integration of the fuzzy logic and the expert system uh actually actually creates a scenario where the variables uh where the actual impact of the different variables can be mapped as we go uh throughout the project execution phase. Uh then we have the Monte Carlo simulation and the probabilistic scheduleuling. Most of the uh network representation of the shoulduling would assume that either the activities the you know the different tasks that are uh that are to be undertaken in the project either their duration is known with certinity or there is a probabilistic you know probabilistic distribution which would describe that what is the probability that a particular activity can be completed in a specific duration. Uh so uh we we have certain standard standard methods to uh account for the probabilistic uh distribution of the activity duration and the and the deterministic uh uh deterministic value of the activity duration. But the problem here is that when we even use the probabilistic value, we tend to focus more on the expected value. So the simulation method basically allows us to use this probability distributions of the different activities and then generate thousands and you know sometimes thousands and millions of those instances right and each instance will tell you that for a particular given set of different activities depending upon the probability of course what will be the total duration of the project and whether a particular activity will be a critical activity or not. So once you have many number of instances through the statistical analysis it becomes easy for you to act correctly estimate that what is the likelihood that a particular activity will be a critical activity or what is the probability that the project will be completed in the uh particular uh duration time right uh so the advantage of this kind of a method is that we have a more reasonable estimate of what activities are the critical and so we focus uh our focus on the critical activities activities become better because we we are expected we are less expected to change uh our focus to the non-critical activity while we start uh executing the project with this kind of a modeling approach. Then we also have MLbased forecasting and the earned value management. So there are many methods mostly basian methods which are currently being experimented with where we can use these methods to have the more reliable duration and the cost estimation of the different project. uh and and then these kind of methods are very much used uh supplemented with the uh earned value management where at different stages we tend to find out that what is the value that each of the stage of the each stage of the project is basically creating uh because there is a there is a cost also associated with executing the activity. So that kind of a comparison can be easily done. Yeah. Uh next slide and hi sir. Okay so I can take this question. So Abhishek says that hi sir I'm Abhishek is 8020 rule also work in 80/20 rule will always work in I mean most of the industry setups. Uh yes it will work definitely it will work in different aspects. uh so you can say that a application would be the 80% of the uncertaintities in the activity duration would be due to the 20% of the factors. So in those cases it will work and then there could be other instances also where this 8020 uh rule will work. Yeah. Okay. So we this is just a very uh brief snapshot of how the certificate course differentiate itself with a typical short-term PM course. Uh so on the dimension of the depth right so since since uh the if if the total duration of the course is small then uh the course will uh usually focus more on the tools right uh and and some uh you know industry use cases and so on. Uh since uh what we are proposing here is a longer course. So here we will uh more talk about the theoretical stuff right. Uh so our objective in this course is basically uh to develop a theoretical intuition for the participant. So the idea is that even if let us say you encounter a situation where a particular model cannot be directly applied. So a model which has been discussed in this course. So at least you have a theoretical intuition that why this model would have worked uh in a particular situation and why this model does not work in this situation and whether I can extend this basic model to you know address a particular context that I'm currently in. So the theoretical intuition that this course tends to develop is has a far more uh of more farreaching consequences when it comes to uh your ability to apply these methods to the actual scenarios. Uh the duration is usually 2 to 4 days for the typical short project management courses where it is 5 months. It is more structured uh across the six modules. Then uh the short-term project management courses we uh usually are delivered through experiential learning because uh we have the industry personalists who have been into this project management for a very long time. So they would share their experiences and that also has its benefit but uh uh at least at least I mean the academicians would always argue that the experiential learning has its importance but it only has its importance if you have a good fair understanding of the theory. Right? So we assume that uh most of the participants who would be you know coming here would uh would would want uh actually to brush up their theories in the project management. So uh in that sense uh it would be helpful for the participants. Uh so AI integration since the short-term PM courses don't have much bandwidth to you know discuss these things uh some some of the contemporary developments that are happening in the project management in detail. uh but here when we talk about this particular post we can discuss some of these developments in more detail. uh so I I must I must give a a caveat here because uh there is a scarcity of the data and most of the a IML based methods require a huge amount of data in order to train the models right and since uh the project manage uh the projects are one-off undertakings so data might be scarce so there are many methods which are currently being experimented in order to improve the decision making and uh with with with some of course with some limited success So we are typically going to discuss those cases in much more detail and uh with with a small data set I can demonstrate how some of these methods are being applied to the uh different aspect of project management. Uh credentials the training completion certificate and for uh this course you will get a IT Bombay certificate which will be issued by the uh institute itself. Right. Okay. Uh next uh yeah okay so uh this is basically the six module learning path here. Uh so in the first module we talk about the uh so so this is broadly what we'll cover in the course. Uh so strategic foundation of project leadership. So here what we tend to do is since uh we we we tend to treat the projects as uh we we we try to draw parallels between the project environment and the industrial environment. So what we tend to do is we try to look at the projects from the systems point of view and we try to see that how we can improve the overall efficiencies of the project. So this is much more uh similar to what we do in the industrial engineering. So we from the industrial engineering perspective we try to look at the processes uh at the entire uh at at uh some process from the system point of view. So this is exactly what we do over here. Uh so in the in in the realms of the project management when we do that we are looking at the entire project uh from a more holistic point of view and we tend to call it as a strategic uh project management. uh so uh we tend to see that how different projects can come together. So we tend to do some uh sort of a uh some so we tend to discuss some of the models where we say that whether a particular project is strategically is aligned to the strategic objectives of the organization uh and and the organization should only undertake the projects which are well aligned to the strategic object. So these are some of the things that we will look at in this module. we will study the models associated with it. Uh then what we'll do is we will do the advanced project evaluation and the prioritization. So let us say that we have uh we we have shortlisted certain projects which we feel that are reasonably aligned strategically to the organization goals. Within those projects we try to do the project evaluation and prioritization. Prioritization is required because every organization will have limited number of resources and sometimes uh we have to allocate the resources and if the resources are scarce then we have to prioritize certain project which tends to maximize the overall uh strategic objectives of the organization. So we will study uh the models uh related to this which which are uh aidly used for the project evaluation and the prioritization. Then we will discuss uh certain models which are used for the integrated scheduuling and dependencies. We'll we are going to look at the integrated models uh when it comes to the uh when when we have this approach where multiple projects are being undertaken simultaneously. So how the there are interdependencies between the project and we are also going to look at the models which are typically used for managing a singular project. Right? So those kind of modeling uh aspects will be discussed in this module. Uh then finally once we have the schedules and the dependence uh relationships already with us then what we tend to do is we plan for the resources and we do the budgeting governance. So here we tend to do uh tend to look at some of the models which are also used for the resource leveling and so on. And then finally we look at so after this what happens is that once the budget is allocated then there are certain aspects where we like to certain models which are used for the project execution and control. So those things will also be discussed within this module. And then finally we are going to discuss more contemporary uh things. For example, how the complex project ecosystems are evolving where there are larger and larger projects. There are more and more complex teams and there are many stakeholders. Uh so the idea is that the models to uh so so the the models which will be used to model the interdependencies and model the uncertaintities within the project needs to be more exhaustive and needs to be uh you know more encompassing in some way. Right? So we will try to discuss that what are the you know developments in the field uh development in the uh domain of these modeling aspects that that can be used for the uh complex uh project ecosystem. And finally uh we will also discuss about we'll also undertake a capstone project where whatever learnings we have had so far in all the earlier modules can be applied to a real project based study so that you understand how these different models and uh different frameworks are basically applied to the uh actual uh scenario. Yeah. Uh next slide. Okay. So these are some of the case studies and these case studies are uh discuss some of the contemporary you know developments that are happening in the project management and these are the case studies which are are uh you know focusing on the a IML aspects of the project management. So we have the case studies like ML based ML enabled litigation outcome prediction. So if the if there is some litigation if there is some uh conflict between the stakeholders so what is the expected outcome depending upon that outcome you can uh continue to dedicate the resources to a particular project or you can just hold and so on that is a basic idea uh there is a IML based cost estimation that this case study there is a case study on ML based project duration uh estimation sorry uh there is a case study on ML enabled earn value management fuzzy rule toolbased expert system for construction project uh future of a IML in project management and you know the integrated capstone purpose okay so these are the hands-on project and the case studies that will be covered okay so learning outcome and who this is for uh so ideally the end result of this uh course is what we see is that that you all the participants attending this course uh must be able to develop steps uh theoretical intuition towards the decision making in project management. Uh of course in a in any given uh course you cannot discuss all the models that are available. Uh but but the idea is that once you discuss the basic models and once you have the understanding that how to explore other models if they can be used then you can basically uh use that knowledge to uh you know attack any uh real world project management problem. So the skills if if we were to drill down on the skills uh so these are the list of the skills that we expect that you will have uh by the time you complete this uh this this particular course. Yeah. Uh so uh yeah next slide. Okay. So what you will be able to do after this program this is a brief snapshot. So apply ML and fuzzy logic to forecast project outcomes and classify stakeholders quantitatively. Uh then design uh decision gates framework using NPV, CBA and the strategic value metrics. So these are some of the metrics which are which are used at the decision gate. So once I encounter a decision gates, I'm going to evaluate these uh the performance of the project across these uh important metrics. uh then build probabilistic risk models to bound uncertaintity and inform go and no go calls. So the idea is that if you have a no-go call, it means the project has become too risky and we should probably not continue with it. Uh so there is a no go and go gate that we have at the strategic points. We evaluate project against ESG and the sustainability frameworks not just financial uh returns. So that is something which is uh coming up in a big way and all the major projects uh need to comply with some sustainability requirements and uh how what is the performance of the project against the ESG. So that is uh something which is uh very much a part of the project reporting. Uh if if the project is to be considered successful then use AI enhance EVM to monitor the program health predictively not reactively right and lead cross functional teams through ambiguity with behavioral and the governance tools. So this is these are some of the things that we expect the learners uh as a takeaway uh from this course. Next slide. Okay. So, uh these are the career trajectories that we think. So, uh the way we have structured this course, I think uh uh since we are more relying on the modeling aspects of the uh project management. So we expect that even somebody who is quite new to the field of project management would also benefit because even if they don't have much of the experience uh but if uh let us say that you are you have been into this field for a long time and you have good experience then uh this course is definitely going to uh definitely give you a uh you know uh better outcome in terms of uh the theoretical underpinnings and then you and use those uh uh these uh theoretical things complemented with your experience to take better and better decisions. Right? Uh so these are some of the career trajectory. So for example uh you can have a become a program director or the PMO head. You can become a portfolio strategy manager because uh the task of the portfolio strategy manager is to look at the portfolio of the different projects because uh the focus the uh uh the a very prevalent idea in the project management is that the way the strategic decisions are taken in any organization is very much dependent upon the type of the projects that it basically undertakes. uh you could become an infrastructurer or EPC project leader. You could become a technology transformation lead and uh definitely you can be a part of a strategic and operation uh consultancy also because the huge amount of work is done at space. Yeah. So next slide. So uh these these are the uh you know uh the segments of the professionals that uh we are targeting. uh so mid to senior uh project and the project managers. So if you have five plus years of experience uh and without any very good theoretical grounding. So let us say that you got into this uh into this field without a very good theoretical grounding. So definitely you will find this course to be useful because uh you will be able to uh use the theoretical the the theory with your experience in order to uh catapult your career further. uh engineers and the technical leaders also will find this uh post to be uh very good because as you undertake as as you plan to aspire to take uh more strategic positions so you will have to handle bigger and bigger projects and definitely the strategy and the consulting professionals. Uh so these are the uh different segment of the professionals whom we think that are going to be uh benefiting for from this course. Yeah. Uh so next slide. So I think Ana you can take it from here. So towards the end of this uh presentation uh you can just uh I think I think not even towards the end of the presentation you can start putting your question in the chat box. Uh so we'll take it up uh towards the end right? Yeah. So an uh thank you professor thank you so much for all the explanation. uh like you said if you uh if any of the participants have any questions uh please feel free to uh let us know in the chat box or the Q&A box and we will answer that uh uh very shortly. So let me quickly take you through the admission process. It's pretty straightforward and designed to be fast as well. There are simple uh simply four steps. Uh you start by submitting an application through SimplyLearn uh where you'll fill in your professional background and your objectives for the program. Uh step two is a profile review by the admissions team uh from IIT Bombay. They will be evaluating your experience, your eligibility and fitment. Uh step three is the admission decision which comes within 7 to 10 uh business days. And step four is enrollment and orientation after you complete your fee payment. Um please do note that the seats are limited. Uh this is not like a mass enrollment module. Uh it's a very curated cohort. um and um you know which is what makes the uh learning environment uh uh more uh fruitful to everyone. So uh if you have plans uh to uh consider this program uh please do take your action as uh at the earliest possible and uh yes uh let me take just a moment to tell you about us about simply learn uh the del partner for this program. Uh simply learn is one of the world's leading online uh learning platforms. We've advanced over 8 million careers across 150 plus countries and we've done it through more than 50 global partnerships with institutions exactly like IIT Bombay. We've been recognized as a top 20 online learning company uh three years running and have won multiple CV awards for sales and customer service. Uh what this means essentially um is that the infrastruct structure, the environment around your learning, the platform, the support, the session management, all of this will be world class. And um yes, what we're really proud of is how our programs have impacted our learners. Uh we have a more than 80% graduation rate with learners rating our programs 4.8 on five and reporting a 50% uh salary on average. And this really shows the kind of learning experience and dedicated guidance that we've been able to provide uh to uh millions. And yes, if you um are interested further um here are the program investment details. Uh for Indian learners, the fee is $150,000 rupees with monthly installment starting at just 6,716. Uh for learners from the USA, the fee is uh $1,640 with installment starting at just $164 a month. uh for our audiences from other parts of the world, you can find the exact fee in your local currency on our program page. I'm going to uh share that in the chat box uh right here. And uh yes, if you want more details on the program, if you want to look into the curriculum in uh detail or you want to um talk to any uh one of our expert advisors, uh please do scan this QR code. You will uh get all the details. Um yes so we've discussed a lot about the program uh already uh but let me just quickly highlight the best things. Um it's a live in uh online interactive uh format of classes from IIT Bombay's top faculty. Um you will be getting a prestigious IIT Bombay certification. Um you will this will be a chance to go beyond PMP certification and make like more strategic impact and you will also be getting simply learn powered job assistance uh which includes like one-on-one mock interviews uh job opportunities um etc. Uh and you will also be getting LinkedIn profile and resume optimization as part of uh simply learns job assist. Great. Um so if you know uh if you've ever been in a meeting where you struggled to make your point because you lacked datab uh narratives or if you want to enhance your decision-m skills using AI and ML or um you know if you imagine yourself not just managing projects but steering uh towards success uh with strategic insights and leadership uh this is the chance to take the next step in your career and truly make an impact. So uh with that I'm going to launch a poll to take your interest in enrolling in the program. Um all you have to do is uh click on yes or no. Um even if you have any queries, you need more details, you uh need more time to think, you can click on yes because our expert advisor will be getting in touch with you and guiding you uh forward. And in case um you're voting no, please do let us uh know the reason in the chat. uh we would like to understand better on what's uh holding you back as well. Um okay. So I'm going to have that poll on for a little while. Okay. Um so professor I'll read out a couple of questions that have come our way. Um okay what will be the impact of AI in project management in the coming years? So uh I don't think it will be a very massive one uh unless and until we so I I'll tell you the what kind of models are currently being experimented on. So mostly these models are basian based models. So the idea is that we start with a particular estimate of the problem parameters and as we proceed further uh in the in the project we get more and more information and that information can be used to uh predict the parameters now more precisely that is one aspect but at the onset because the because of the unique nature of the project uh you cannot simply apply many of these methods uh that are uh any of the standard methods because they rely too much on the historical data and we assume that much of the project activities that we are going to see for any project are going to be non-repetitive in nature. Uh but but yes uh when it comes to the estimation there are more these methods are more generic in nature. uh they assume there is less of the assumption assumption and they provide us with the more flexibility in the modeling. So in that sense uh they are being used and so there are some definitely some uh you know some some uh some success but I don't see that it is going to radically completely change the project management field. It is ultimately going to be uh very much focused on the uh you know standard models with some enhancements and then uh experiential learning is also very much important for becoming a successful project. That is something which is which will be always be there. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Um we have uh a question in the chat box from Prairie. Uh he says PMP certificate is widely recognized across the globe. uh will IITB certificate has that level of acceptance? Um it's not that he's doubting the institute but he just wants to understand the uh global recognition possibilities of the certificate. So uh see the the first thing is that obviously when you look at the uh acceptability of the of of this certificate obviously it is not as good as the PMP certificate that you talked about and there are other certifications also in the project management. what we are currently focusing on is not the certificate. Certificate is one aspect. The other thing is that we want to focus more on the theory and I uh in in our initial discussions also we saw that some of the things that are taught in the in these certifications uh we will like to enhance them in a better way uh to to see that what are the contemporary things that are happening in the data field of data analytics application to the project management. So it is more of a you can say learning focus certification and in that sense yeah but but when it comes to more uh acceptability so obviously the PMT certificate will be more widely acceptable because unless and until we get to that level okay thank you professor. Uh with that I'm going to end the uh poll for um dropping your interest to enroll in the program. Uh we do have a couple more questions and we will take that. Um and yes if if anyone has any more questions please do drop them in the chat box or the Q&A box. I'm also going to um launch another poll. Uh for those of you who need attention certificate uh for participating in the session, please do um enter your full name um that you want on the certificate. we will be able to generate and share it with you on email within the u next 48 working hours. Um meanwhile a couple more questions uh professor that have come our way. Let me just read that out. for learners who have not used technical tools such as Python before, how does this course support building those skills from the ground up? So first of all uh the way we approach uh in this course so it will not involve to any coding of that sort. So even if there is some Python implementation we can very easily use the generative AI unless if if we have a fair understanding of the model. So I I can show you how to use any basic model in the generative AI to generate the code and then can just paste it in the Python to get the result. But the idea is that once you have a fair understanding of the model then you can use your generative AI better in order to generate the corresponding code for a particular uh you know model. Uh so we are not going to focus anything on the actively on the coding because the basic coding u that it that that this course may require can be very easily generated by the generative AI. Okay. Thank you. And uh the next question, one second. Will this uh uh will this program be useful for someone in uh in a core operations role? Depends totally depends. So uh for example, even in the uh core operation industrial environment, you tend to undertake a lot of projects. So for example, let us say that you are launching a new product. So launching a new product into the market itself is can be seen as a project. Uh so let us say that you want to have a technological you know upgradation. Let us say that you want to have a you know sort of a industry 4.0 implementation in your factory right. So that is also a project right. So I cannot think about any industry or any aspect where project management will not play a active role unless and until it is very stagnant in nature. Uh so these days markets are uh rarely any industry is very stagnant then no matter what where you are you will always have to undertake some projects. So that is one aspect but it is not necessary that you will be involved into that undertaking but definitely the manufacturing uh industry also has lot of project application. Okay perfect. Um there is uh another question on the difference between BMP certification and project uh management course from IIT Bombay. I think we've uh covered this in one of the slides professor. So up to you if you want to take this question and summarize. No, I can take I can take I can take. So we we have looked at the PMP course and we want to cover most of the aspects of the PMP and over over and above that we want to cover certain other aspects also. uh so our focus our effort would be to already cover the the things that are covered with the PMP with some added flavor try to do okay perfect uh I see one question uh regarding the schedule of uh the uh the program we do have a cohort uh starting very shortly uh so uh you can check that out in uh the program page um if you want like a cohort that works uh according to your timeline. You can also like you talk to the um um talk to our expert who will be able to guide you over the timelines and the details of the schedules etc. So I hope that question is answered. Um okay so Pravin has another question for the a IML module will there be any uh demo or like you know hands on uh hands-on demo work is what he says what does that mean so what we'll try to do is that see the a IML implementation in project management have not become very standard uh as I said that there are certain experiments which we are conducting. So how I want to cover these implementation is by discussing certain case studies and yes I can take some small numerical examples just to show uh how it will be worked in a real life instance. So I can so we can have a small data set and we can you know work around uh with that data set to just yeah those things can happen. Yeah. But it will be uh so major focus my major focus will be to discuss that case study and less on the you know this hands-on thing but yes uh that will be anyways a part of it. Okay perfect uh thank you professor uh and uh yes I with that I'm going to end the poll for the certificate as well. Um right so we are at the end of the session now um if anyone has any question uh that we were not able to address in the webinar or you want to share any feedback please do write to us at webinars simple.net net. Uh, Professor Priyam, thank you so much for being here and like you know your guidance of sharing your knowledge and insights uh for the last one hour. It's been a pleasure hosting you. Do you have any final remarks to share any advice for our learners? No, nothing. Okay. Um, so to all the participants, thank you very much uh for spending the last 1 hour with us. We hope that you'll be able to apply the learnings from the session as well as what you'll get from the strategic project management program to get ahead in your career. Uh have a great day everyone. Thank you.