Guest talk on “Project Management – A Practitioner’s Perspective” on Mar 23rd 2011 – An Oxygen Club Initiative

A interactive guest talk on Project Management was organised by Oxygen, the Operations Club of TKM Institute of Management on March 23rd at the Seminar Hall of the institute for both the batches of MBA participants. The chief guest of the day, Mr. Anil Janardhanan, Deputy General Manager, UST Global gave an overview about Project Management, one of the most powerful and evolving disciplines today. Backed with over two decades of experience in managing IT projects, he spoke about the topic from a practitioner’s perspective. Project Management is the application of skills, knowledge, tools and techniques to meet /exceed the needs and expectations of stakeholders for a project. The purpose of Project Management is Prediction and Prevention and NOT recognition and reaction. He also touched upon systems and project basics and the key entities of a project viz. Project, Engineering and Management. The project management life cycle phases of initiation, planning, execution, monitoring/controlling and closure were dealt with in detail from an engineering, project and management perspective. He gave an insight into the Flexibility Matrix / Triple constraints of cost, schedule and scope and Project Metrics. The importance of Communications, Change, Risk and Quality management was also stressed. The session concluded by summarizing the critical success factors of a project namely visibility (observation), decision making (controllability) and communication. The presentation was followed by interaction with the participants. During this session, he also enlightened the MBA participants on the expectations of corporate world and the various opportunities existing in software industry for students aspiring for a career in project management. The function was presided over by the Director, Dr. S Kevin. Also present were Prof. P Nizzar, Dean, Dr. A Viswanathan, Head-Operations Department, Mrs. Gayathri Jnaneswar, Co-ordinator, Oxygen Club, and other faculty members and staff.