One day training course on ‘principles of project management’ was organized for the first batch of Indian Skills Development Services (ISDS) officers on Saturday 20 February 2021. The training course was organized by Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) under its Skills for Jobs programme in collaboration with Directorate General of Training.
The sessions were conducted by Mr. Robert Mittion, an expert from BRITEthink Academy, a digital and online training centre from UK specializing in project management and leadership training of government officers. Ms. Anu Gupta and Mr. Sanjay Valsangkar (FCDO) delivered a session on Measuring Progress and Results as part of the training.
The training was attended by 20+ ISDS and DGT officials. This was the second such training after the first one on Financial Management organized in January 2021. The training series is aimed at developing skillsets of the officials in key operational areas which are crucial for managing large scale transformation projects.
In the first session of the project management course, Mr. Robert introduced the participants to key components of project planning and delivery. The second session focused on fundamentals of risks in which participants were introduced to risk analysis tools and techniques. The third interactive session introduced participants to monitoring techniques including the concepts of theory of change and logical frameworks. The last session delivered by Mr. Robert was on project financing and budgeting.
Throughout the training, focus was on sharing relevant examples and case studies with the participants. Several examples from skill development initiatives in the UK and India were referred to bring in contextual knowledge. Pre-course survey and work material helped the facilitators in contextualizing the course content.
The learnings from the course, training material and other tools and resources shared with officers during the course will help them during implementation of complex large-scale skill development projects.
