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Future Proofing of IPM Professional Education

Jayadeva de Silva.

It is an established fact that becoming a leading organization is easier than continuing to


be the leader .Great organizations are those which are able to stand the test of time
organizations that are able to transform themselves to changing internal and external
forces. These organizations ensure that today's glory is not at the expense of tomorrow's
struggles. Let us agree that at the out set Key activity of the IPM (SriLanka) is
Continuing Professional Education.

I have been associated with IPM for over 3 decades and as a former Council member,
Vice President and a Fellow of the Institute wish to submit this paper for consideration by
all those who are concerned about the future of IPM.

I have heard at several meetings of the Business school committee meetings that we
should have a quality assurance for our programmes. Yet there appears to be no interest
in the matter, perhaps due to the illusion that many are enrolling for IPM courses
regardless of quality. As a professional Institute, out side agencies will not interfere if
there is no major catastrophe. I have a feeling that we are heading towards a crisis and
this is initiated to prevent such a thing happening. I sincerely hope these ideas would be
of use for the current administration of IPM

Let me start with an example that all of us can agree with. There are 3 ways to make
better product i.e. Better parts (“raw materials”) Better product design and manufacturing
process, one uses feedback for quality assurance (QA) and for ideas on how to
continuously improve. Same is true of professional education
For Better educated students coming into the system we must improve what we teach,
how we teach it, and who teaches it .We should ask students 0-15 years later for feedback
and actually use it to change the previous 2 steps

We need to improve the quality of the incoming students by living the vision that all
students in here receive the best professional education... How do we do that? Simply we
must establish clear, measurable goals, Change some of the things we do, copy what
works and stop doing stuff that doesn’t work thereafter measure and adjust. This isn’t
rocket science. It’s just that we don’t do it very well. There are several changes required
We need to understand why we have failed in the past and avoid those mistakes. We must
understand why other organizations here and abroad have succeeded and adopt “best
practices” of such top performing institutes. Copying first to get to parity, innovating
later should be our strategy. For this, one must have the leadership and courage to do
things dramatically differently than we are today, create a vision, clear goals, and a
believable strategy based on what has proven to work

Why isn’t there a checklist for professional education & training that we actually use?
In aviation, a pilot uses an extensive proven checklist to ensure a safe flight. Why not
offer a substantial on-going incentives to enable to all those concerned to pass a proven

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checklist of statistically proven replicable requirements that ensures a quality
education & training? Why don’t we run our affairs like airlines?
A. Airlines governed by International safety standards (not set by airlines!)
B. All pilots are qualified and certified to fly the plane type (no unqualified substitutes
allowed!)
C. On-going pilot training is required
D. Pilots who don’t perform can be fired
E. Planes that don’t meet code can’t be used
F. Pilots free to determine how to fly the plane, but not the destination
G. Require pilots to go through a proven safety checklist (that ensures a successful flight)
before takeoff

How are things with us today? There are over 50 teachers & that many standards for what
students are to learn... Alignment (standards, curriculum, materials, and assessments) is
therefore virtually impossible we are set up to fail. There is no good reason we can’t have
standards. That is step number one. Then changing how we teach is a must .Why the
failure rates are so high?

We need to use Metric ideas such as


• Customer satisfaction
• Peer/supervisor rated satisfaction
• % employed after 1-2 years
• % who were fired in first 2 years
• Average salary improvement after 2 years
• % who got jobs after graduation

Why not treat our professional education policy like drugs? Just see how the analogy
works. Efficacy-Require proof of efficacy, i.e., it has to work, Safety-Require testing on
a diverse population to look for unintended consequences (negative side effects),
Scalability-Prove that it can be rolled out in scale and still work)

Right way: for us is to


• Research best practices- spend time studying best practices in other places
• Prototype-Create a prototype approach based on the learnings but adapted for our
market
• Test and validate-Test it at few courses. Get a third party to validate results by
comparing to other schools of similar profile. There is a grave need for changing what we
teach and give people what they need to be successful

For an example course units should be as follows


• x+ y + z units to graduate
- x units core subjects
- y units elective
- z units General Institute requirements

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Does one pie really fit all? Executives, Managers, entrepreneurs, researchers, engineers,
marketers. Are we imparting soft skills? Such as, Presentation skills, teaching skills,
Leadership. Teamwork, Negotiation skills, Nonverbal communication, Decision making,
Company politics, Giving feedback, Receiving feedback, Sales skills, Attire, Behavioral
change, Interviewing skills, Social skills, Basic project management skills,
, Organization skills, Coaching/mentorship, running a meeting, Conflict resolution. If
there is one change you can make right now to improve our professional education &
training this is it i.e. Soft skills

Now let us look at the Project Report. .Upon completion of this part of the course,
students would have learned how to:
- propose and define research problems and think about solutions, critically
evaluate technical presentations, architect technical presentations, present technical
material in oral and written forms to different audiences at different levels of detail, give
and receive constructive feedback, write progress reports. Question we need to pose
ourselves is -Are we achieving these objectives? How many students are completing the
project report?

Changing who is doing the teaching


It would be necessary to require a 6 week training course for new faculty; require people
who teach to have “real world” experience in industry, It is vital that we change
incentives to reward collaboration, teamwork, and teaching. We need to encourage
research not just individual research!

Measure and adjust


Creating a feedback system for quality assurance and continuous improvement area must
What has been our experience? Many failed in job situations on the soft skills. Nobody
failed due to a lack of understanding of the basic subject matter in their core area of
expertise. Many failed due to an inability to translate their knowledge into action
So our feedback should measure: what skills are the most used. what skills they could use
to be more effective, what skills were required for success; what skills led to failure
Why isn’t there a feedback system in place at IPM? What are our goals? Do we have
metrics aligned to those goals? Do we know what they are? Is it used as a basis for
compensation? Is it used as a basis for adjusting the process and the design?

Summary
For me Improving professional education is a lot like building a better computer or such
product Quality components: Demand the highest quality components from suppliers;
help them improve, Customer driven design: Adjust the design of the product to fit
what people want to buy (a successful career), Quality volume manufacturing: Improve
the manufacturing process by copying best practices and making sure we have clear
manufacturing specs (goals) and that the products meet the spec (testing) at high volume
(scalability), Feedback: Take a look at the product after it’s been in use for a few years
to ensure quality and provide ideas for improvement

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