Projects

Projects

 

25/7/16

 

Among the few things that have changed within my lifetime, one important example is that of ‘projects’.  While I was in school/college, which was a long time back I must confess, there never was this topic of ‘Projects’ deliberated.  The only way I remember thinking about the word ‘project’ then was something that was associated with ‘projector’ or ‘projection’ – something like a movie, for conveying or brainwashing someone or a group.  To some extent, while this might still be true, what has changed is a lot of discussion about ‘the project’ during academic hours.

Indians have traditionally been associated with ‘poor’ executioners of projects.  Many of our projects are famous for their cost and time overruns and the several abandoned in between.  In the 70s, when I entered the job market it was quite common to accept that many of our publicly supported projects would not see the light of the day (for example, peace in the state of J&K) and were created with the unspoken intention of perpetual currency (e.g.: affirmative action/ reservation policy).  Thus, when Indian businesses were forced to participate in global competition in the nineties, many feared that whether we will measure up to the expectation of “successful completion” of the projects coming our way (say, the 2KY problem).  Thankfully, we have been reasonably successful, or must I say, more successful that our track record till date would have predicted.  This does not mean that we have mastered the art of ‘doing projects’, as I am reminded on a daily basis in academic campuses, but only that we have learned the lingo, and know that it can be done.

 

The idea of doing projects as a student has become fashionable after I left school/college.  Nowadays school/college projects are very common at all levels, right from kindergarten to doctorate level.  (When I went to graduate school it was only called as a thesis or dissertation, and a debate about which terminology was correct or appropriate.)  Talking to different teachers about ‘projects’ I am quite confused why this term gets used.  I looked up the Merriam Webster’s version, which says “planned piece of work having a specific purpose, requiring a lot of time” or “a problem requiring careful work over a long period of time”.  I know these statements are sufficiently vague, particularly in terms of the time factor, to be interpreted in multiple ways, but I am not sure I can connect the points I gather from academic circles to these ideas offered by the dictionary.  Some samples of words I have gathered from academic circles are these: internship, industry (or more frequently industrial project), testing, cost, constraint, solution, benefit, validation, standards, time lines, alternatives, systems, process, report, models, future trends, thrust areas, real life.  Words I wish I could see: knowledge, prioritize, integrate, triage, analyze, resource, manage, solve, differentiate, create.  The problem is it is quite confusing for me what is expected and I am not even the student now.  The students, I suspect since no one has asked for my clarification, are believing that the teacher is going to tell them what is to be done, and they will if they can.  It is a time they can unwind from the rigors of the lectures and laboratories, and hang around appearing busy – preparing for the various presentations and reviews, till they receive a job offer in person or paper.

There also is the question of ownership.  In theory courses the duties of the various participants are more or less clear.  The teacher brings the subject to the class, the institution provides a place and other support system as required (or available) – classrooms, lighting, boards, etc., and the students are expected to get something which could be determined through an examination system.  For the laboratory courses also the boundaries are clear – the teacher tells what to do, the institution provides the platform, and the students do, and presumably learn something in the process.  Many a times, the lab courses stop at doing, but the whys and wherefores are not addressed explicitly.   But as far as the project are concerned, the vagueness of what to achieve is a good reason to avoid provide something worthwhile and do what is convenient.  It will be nice to define and assess what has been learnt, rather than what has been achieved, because anything can be justified as achievement.  However, the intangible learnings will be transferable and hopefully useful in the next stage of the student, such as in employment.

Teaching vs. Research – part II; Institutional Perspective

Teaching vs. Research – part II; Institutional Perspective

 

(For part I, see:  https://ramamurt.wordpress.com/2015/09/07/teaching-vs-research-vs-teaching-and-research/)

 

11/9/15

 

Institutional support systems or frameworks for teaching and research as human endeavors have been starkly different showing a high degree of variance, both historically and currently.  Teaching has always been within institutions and the exceptions like private schooling have been limited.  This is at least true for formal training to get some kind of certification.  Teaching/ learning of other skills for hobby or profession – like music, painting, sports etc. have been out of this institutional support, in terms of numbers and preferences.  For some reason, the more organized system is preferred when getting a certification is involved while individualized system is preferred when learning is concerned.  Research, on the other hand, has come under the purview of education system rather lately, mainly from the 20^th century.  Most/many of the big research contributors worked outside of a University system before the 20^th century (and the early 20^th century).  Examples: Newton (working in his mother’s garden while on a vacation from his university), Ramanujan (in his private time, mostly as an addiction to his field), Einstein (privately, while working in a job), Darwin (in his study).

 

12/1/16

 

There is a discussion, healthy or otherwise, in academia about how much research is necessary for good teaching.  I have not seen any white paper on this issue but many opinion pieces and informal discussions.  Also, policies are sometime made which suggest intent and direction.  However, in practice there is a wide variety of institutional reaction, behavior and response to this debate – from those that claim to be research institutions (meaning teaching and training getting delegated to a secondary activity) to liberal colleges, coaching schools and training schools.  While some institutions ‘actively’ discourage teaching by diluting its requirement to their faculty, no institution ‘discourages’ research in the same sense.  However, ‘research discouragement’ in such organization is accomplished by the lack of encouragement to its faculty other than mere platitudes.

 

Unlike teaching, research is much more difficult to be defined administratively.  Thus, the majority of institutions in the educational domain that hope to have a strong administrative control on its faculty find the control easily achieved by emphasizing teaching over research.  It is much easier to track ones time spent in teaching related activities than tracking time in research.  Measures such as  number of courses offered, number of hours engaged, opinion of the student body, etc. are easy to accomplish and control.  In contrast, the time spent on research is much more slippery.  The main activity is thinking which is notoriously difficult to monitor by any observer.  Here, in terms of tracking, the key term is time, not the effort, quality or outcome from the activity.  Secondly, teaching as a part of business process is less risky and guarantees revenues more consistently than research.  Thus, from an administration point of view, the profitability of the venture through teaching is more attractive because the customer is clearly defined, the cost-benefit can be reliably worked out, and the return on investment can be predictable.  None of these apply to research, there is a higher risk and the payoff could be in the negative even under favorable conditions.  This gives some insight about why the national research output is less than satisfactory.

 

Knowledge Management Teaching Research

Impediments to Improvement

Impediments to Improvement

 

11/1/16

 

Although we are comfortable with things as they are, whether they are desirable or otherwise, we are reminded every now and then that change is inevitable.  And we all know this since neither we can prove the contrary nor our experiences support it.  When change is inevitable it is preferable that it is towards the positive side rather than the other way.

 

The virtues of continuous improvement are propounded at all levels, and it will be impossible for anyone to escape this information / insight / encouragement / stimulus / enforcement coming from many directions.  Thus, it is not for lack of information there is lack of improvement in many sectors or individuals.  Usually there is a chasm between theory and practice which is generally or intentionally ignored and many willing participants get sucked into.  It is only a minority that is sensitive and aware of this trap and become skillful to overcome this and become exemplars for progress which others can cite as success stories.

 

One of the steps in making progress is to identify benchmarks so that one could put their effort in meeting and exceeding the benchmark parameters.  Although conceptually this is a simple idea, in practice many organizations / individuals find it difficult to accept the right benchmark.  It is usually not a question of identification, but that of acceptance.  There is great pride in comparing oneself with the leader of the pack, while comparison with the other competitors / participants does not induce the same sense of pride.  This often leads to setting up targets that are too ambitious or rather discouraging due to the difficulty in getting closer.

 

Recently there was an interesting event that attracted the attention of popular press: A new record was reached in school cricket. This event was also followed up with several commentaries and opinions.  Many of the ‘experts’ were trying to analyze its significance to cricket, sports and life.  Some of the points I have not seen in any of these articles are these: (1) School cricket is different from professional cricket, there is a large variability in the skills of different teams; while some schools have organized training, many others participate because of invitation to fill the slots. (2)  Most events are not recorded. (3)  There is no organized talent search and training programs in many schools for any sports, participation mainly by interested volunteers.  Most schools focus their energy in academic achievements of their wards, and involvement in sports is rather thrust upon them by external forces such as government policy or parental influence.  Thus, not all records even if they get recorded in books of records are not indicators of progress or change.  Some are just indicators of news items attracting public attention.

 

Many a times improvement is just a consequence of removing the negative contributors.  But this requires the mind set of identifying those negatively contributing actions without bias.  An activity might be pursued will all good intentions, but if it drags the system it has to be eliminated.  There is a conflict here because of the opposing nature of intent and effect in such cases.  The audit systems are supposed to help identifying such conflicts, but I would like to see an effective audit from this perspective.  The usual audit process is confined to looking at the fit between a template and process, not asking whether the template itself is appropriate.

 

 

Quality Management Progress

A New Year, A New Beginning

A New Year, A New Beginning

 

2/1/16

 

Greetings to all.  This is the time when family, friends and acquaintances are reminded, they are reminded of your existence, reminded of your thoughts about them, reminded of what you can and what you have picked up from the morass of cliques going around but not necessarily applicable in many cases.  Tools and gadgets have come about to make the job more easy.  It’s become so easy that the gadgets communicate between themselves without even bothering their host.  It is not even necessary to initiate the reminder or the thoughts any more, the gadgets can take care of them.  Your friends and foes could be picked up from your address book and contacts list without bothering you.  When you begin to get letters from your countries ministers (politicians), I am not sure you need to feel blessed and connected or threatened and worried that the big brother is watching you.  This does not mean that when you are not contacted you are not being watched, but being intimated means you can also be intimidated / contacted, and will be if necessary.  I wonder to what level the greetings reach.  Is it to everyone who has an institutional / official mailbox?  (I don’t get reminded of Diwali and Id from people in high positions in my non-official mailboxes.)  Are these wishes only for those who are holding official posts? Are the greetings for the post or the person, even though in all these communications my name is what is getting addressed?

 

Communication is a subject I teach and research.  One of the important fallacies I got rid of after several years of dealing with the subject is that for any system the role of the signal receiver is more important than the role of the signal generator.  Signals are irrelevant when there is nobody out there to make sense of them.  Yes, when a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, it doesn’t make noise.  But still we devote a lot more time to characterize and understand the signal creation process, and not enough on the receiver.  From the perspective of economics, for example, there is a viable business model for making/generating/sending greeting cards, but none for receiving them.

 

So, I am responding on this New Year as a receiver of the signal from all my well wishers out there.  To some of those signals I feel touched and motivated.  To some I am piqued.  And to some I have no reaction or recognition.  Here’s wishing more response in the New Year.

 

New Year, Greetings, Signal, Noise

 

P.S.  This is off-reference because it has been posted several months after being written, apologies for any confusion.