Social Development Projects - A Mandatory Project Course in PGP Curriculam

Standard Practice Guide

Background:

1. Identification of SDP Group Students: Maximum of six students can be there in one group.
2. Identification of SDP Group Projects: Projects are primarily identified by the SDP Officer and are approved by the SDP Coordinator(s) based on various parameters like doability, adherence to overall guidelines and ethos of the institution, clarity of objective and so on. Projects are obtained from government institutions like hospitals, traffic police, municipalities or from non governmental agencies (NGOs) and so on. The projects would be aimed at identifying and solving their management related problems that such organizations face. There is another route to applying for the projects directly through IIMK website.
3. SDP Workshop and Fair: This is done for bringing the third party organizations and students on the same platform. SDP Coordinator invites all participating third party organizations to a workshop and fair (1-2 days) that is organized at IIMK. Lectures are organized for them and often in-depth discussions are held with them to understand their problems and modify the projects accordingly. Some workshops on developing management skills are conducted for participating organizations. They are invited to motivate students to pick up their projects during an SDP Fair. Then all PGP students are to visit the stalls presenting their choicest stalls in the SDP Fair.
4. Matching SDP Group to Projects: The list of these projects shall be made available to SDP student groups, who shall indicate their preferences.
5. Finding SDP Project Mentors: SDP coordinators invites expression of interest on the list of projects from the faculty body for faculty mentors for each SDP project. One mentor shall be responsible for upto a maximum three SDP Projects.
6. Submission of Consent from Faculty Mentor (Second Party) and Key Contact Person (Third Party): Consent letter signed by the Key Contact Person of the participating organization and the Faculty Mentor shall be submitted to the SDP Coordinator. Contact Addresses and Numbers of all the group members, faculty members and the contact person (third party) shall be clearly mentioned in the consent letter.
7. Regular SDP Diary Updates: The groups shall be given SDP Diaries. The Consent Letter shall be attached to the SDP diaries. All groups shall maintain timelines and submit the final project with SDP Diaries to the coordinators after getting it duly approved from the second and third parties on or before the stipulated dates.
8. Intermediate Meetings with Student Groups in Class: SDP coordinator shall hold 1-2 in-class discussions with student groups during the course of SDP in progress to ensure that students are working with good motivation and quality.
9. Intermediate Meetings with Faculty Mentors: Feedbacks from mentors are taken and most often an interim meeting is held while the SDP is in progress.
10. Resolution of any misunderstanding or issues arising during the SDP ongoing process – The Representative of participating organizations should have an ongoing dialogue with the SDP officer about how projects are running at their organizations, how students are taking initiatives in their projects and so on. In case of any issues arising, they should get the SDp Officer and the SDp coordinator to intervene and resolve the issue as soon as possible.
11. Final Submission of a Write Up and a schecduling evaluation and presentation about the Project along with the completed formalities of SDP Diary to the SDP Mentors: The Process of carrying out SDP Projects shall be the special focus of each report. The approved report and presentation shall be forwarded by each Group to their SDP Coordinator. The mentor should give his/ her evaluation of the project in an evaluation sheet to the SDP Coordinator.
12. Evaluation: SDP has a three tier structure for fair evaluation. This structure comprises of three categories of evaluators with evaluation weightages as mentioned below:

• Mentor (50% weightage): The mentor will be directly involved with the students throughout SDP, guiding and monitoring each project and relationships with third and fourth parties.
• SDP Coordinator (10% weightage): The coordinator will be involved from concept to commissioning as a facilitator from orientation, mentor identification, discussions between groups and mentors and third party and so on. This kind of continued and higher level involvement with the SDP projects gives them a good reference point for evaluation.
• External Evaluators (40% weightage): This will comprise of a two-member panel of a faculty (not involved as a mentor on the said project) and an NGO person*, who shall bring in fair and objective evaluation to each project of the SDP. This is done based on the final presentation of the group on the evaluation day.