Drivers of Project Management (PM) Education in India - A Research Study

Advanced training, Senior Level executives : Strategic training. These findings highlight a planned approach for PM training.

Overall the perception amongst the HR managers is that PM training is quite expensive vis a vis majority of the factors such as : Trainees’ salaries and time, Materials for training, Expenses for trainers, Expenses for trainees, Cost of facilities and equipment, Lost productivity. However the lowest cost rating assigned to the factor ‘Lost Productivity of executives’ implies that HR managers do not mind the loss of productivity of executives during their absence, which they feel will be more than compensated by the large scale benefits expected from training.

HR managers view training to be ‘quite benefitial’ on all the factors considered including : Increase in production/ performance, Reduction in errors and improvement of safety standards, Employee retention, Lesser supervision, Ability to use new skills and capabilities, Improved delivery performance, Attitude changes, and Growth of business oportunities. HR managers strongly endorse the benefits derived from Attitude changes. One factor - Increase in production / performance, is not viewed as benefitial as other factors. One interpreation is that they look for direct benefits from training in ‘process improvement’ rather than ‘output improvement’.

Certified Franchisee Trainers are considered most efficacious training providers, followed by Internationally Certified Trainers, Independent Trainers and Academic institutions. This may be attributed to the flexibility and highly focussed approach of these trainers. However it is important to mention that the highest percentage preference in the ‘Most Efficacious’ category was assigned to academic institutions. Their good concentration of highly qualified faculty, a fair degree of specialised competence and research experience are a great advantage for developing good training content. The reasonable cost of such institutions is an added advantage. However the downside is that they may not always be able to effectively deliver purely custom designed training programmes. The most frequent academic institutions for PM related training appear to be the management institutions together as group, followed by in house trainers and NICMAR. Considering that NICMAR is a single entity, its share of 11.43% in PM training is most enviable by comparable industry standards. It is reassuring to know that the HR managers consider international accreditation to be of value. But the managers may not be fully aware of the benefits of international accreditation with respect to their organisation.

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