Faculty Development Program (Report)

A Faculty Development Program “ILLUMINATION” was organized in the institute premises on 2^nd and 3^rd July’07.

The program was a good combination of diverse issues like Project Management, Innovative ways of teaching, and Soft skill development, Agile Software development, Expectation of Industry from Institute/Faculty/Student etc.

2^nd July 2007

The first session started with lecture by Dr. Shushil Dhiman, Reader Education Dept., Delhi University, who spoke on “Teachers as Mentors”. She emphasized that in all levels of academic hierarchy i.e. Professor, Reader, Lecturer the essential underlying element must be “good teacher”. According to her, imparting education comprises of passing the accumulated knowledge and to understand, support ,guide and carve out the best out of a student.

Sighting an example she said that a student is like a rubber band. A teacher as a mentor must stretch it to the optimum level without breaking it. She emphasized that the teachers as mentors must be sensitized towards the needs of students, as it is a variable factor.

A teacher should be self-reflective i.e. keeping track of his/her own plus and minus points and should be able to handle various situations that arise in class. This introspection helps us to grow as a better teacher, who understands his/her students better and deals with them more effectively.

She concluded her lecture by defining the qualities of a teacher as mentor. A mentor must be sensitive, responding, affectionate, with good listening and observation skills .With the changing time students look up to a teacher more as a guide and role model and we must live up to their expectations.

2^nd Lecture was by Mr. Gyan Prakash of Sahara Media on “Innovative Ways of Teaching”. He very briefly introduced why teaching has become much more demanding profession than before. Today teaching not only requires accumulation of knowledge but also passion to impart it in such a way that it is well received by the students. He asked the teachers to gain awareness about themselves before knowing their students. He emphasized on “holistic approach” towards education.

The Post-lunch session opened with a very interactive lecture by Mr. Mohit Mittal, Sr. System Analyst, Grapecity. He divided the participants into teams and each team was given pieces of paper’s to make 3 squares. Principles of basic project management were demonstrated with this small exercise. He explained that skill sets required by any good project management was to have Organizational skills, Communication skills, problem solving, Leadership Quality and Team Building. Project management is a ‘Science’ and Project Manager must know the ‘art’ of applying it appropriately. He described in details the ingredients of project management viz Scope Management, Time Management, Cost Management, Resource Management, Risk Management, Quality Management, Team Management and finally Customer management.

In the last session, Mr. Virendera Verma elaborated upon the best practices being followed in the industry. For example he described Work Break Down Structure (WBS) being followed for scope management. It was surprising to know that at a time out of 150 only 25 requirements are selected by the developer to work upon. Each new feature added is given a number. Any change in request has to be originated as formal change request process and finally all requests are kept in a Tractability Matrix. Time management requires keeping short-term goals say 3 days rather than month long objective.

He further added that FPA – Function Point Analysis as explained in theory is actually never used for cost management. Rather the industry people invite the client to be with them for 15 days, free of cost and let the developer understand the system before any price is quoted. Expert Judgment model is used in this regard. He explained bottom-up approach in cost estimation. Resource Management requires optimum utilization of functional team, keeping resources in buffer and assigning work to individuals in such a manner that nobody feels underutilized. Risk Management involved identification of risk, prioritizing the list and giving ownership of the risk. All said and done it is ultimately the quality of the software that make it salable or non saleable in the market. Hence, many reviewers of the system is required using defect tracking tool.

Team management is most “interpersonal skill” intensive activities. It involves solving conflicts, team moral management, up gradation of member skills, using auto team and introduction of fun element to the work. Last but not the least customer management is toughest task where regular communication with the customer is a must. It is necessary to provide the customer with all possible option and risk involved. The end result expected by a project manager is a happy, continued customer who will come back to the same company.

3^rd July 2007

On 2^nd day, the session opened with presentation on ‘Research Opportunities – How to write a Research paper in IT’ by Dr. Vinay Kumar, Scientist. National Informatics Center, Delhi. Dr. Kumar suggested that one should take one idea, start writing a paper and then go for research as writing forces a person to be clear focused. It also crystallized what we don’t understand. Once this paper goes for publication a dialogue is started with the external world that suggest up improving upon our writing. Research according to him basically involves, identifying the problem, finding out what others have done then develop one’s own solution and finally show that this solution works, is better and complete. He also explained how to organize research paper.

The second session was a brief one. It started with a presentation by Mr.Amit Chugh ,Senior Software Engineer, ST Microelectronics. He explained different security tools which are used in industry in different security situations. Encryption. and decryption method of security was discussed in detail.

The second speaker of the session was Mr.Debashish Bahwra,Senior Scientist,TCS.

He elaborated on various Software Life Cycle Models. The maintenance phase in water fall model takes place only at the end. Today industry practices Agile methodology which include maintenance in every phase of life cycle so that cost saving start from the beginning. Predictive Vs. Inventive Approach, Risk driven Business Application, Iteration Vs Increment models were also discussed.

The soft skill development basically involves communicational, inter personal skills, along with leadership quality & industry knowledge so as a student not only gets a job but is well adjusted in the environment where he can integrate himself with his team mates and help shape the future of industry.

The FDP was successful in enhancing teaching skills as well as giving insight into industry practices.

Alka Leekha Sumit Chauhan

(Coordinator) (Coordinator)