2014

ADMAP JOURNAL
PGP13-174 Charith Appachu.K.A

Introduction to ADMAP
ADMAP is a pedagogic initiative by SPJIMR to inculcate the ability to get things done (i.e)
administration. Art of learning by doing is one of the key mottos of ADMAP. Under this
innovative concept, each student has to be mandatorily part of a committee and needs to
maintain the functioning of the committee in an effective manner thereby learning the role
of managing and administration. The students are entirely responsible for the functioning of
the committee under the guidance of the faculty in charge, who merely acts as a facilitator.
ADMAP helps in making the students understand the difficulties and complexities in getting
things done and also teaches the student abut group dynamics and persuasion.
The ADMAP learning process has four important pillars to facilitate learning by a student.
In order to facilitate the learning, a framework has been developed based on the four most
important pillars. They are:

Administrative Context

Administrative Process

ADMAP Learning
process

Administrator's Role

Administrative Culture

Each pillar contributes to the overall learning of an individual

Administration
Administration according to me is the ability to get things done by learning to manage
people and systems. The following abilities are important in administration
(a) Art of managing your subordinates, your peers and your superiors.
(b) The ability to convince and persuade people to help you with your work.
(c) The ability to hope for the best of results but prepare for the worst of results.
(d) Instant decision making at times of emergency.
(e) Understanding the sociocultural aspects of decision making.
Proposition: Managing and influencing people and systems to get the execution in place.
Experience: Working in the Finance Conclave Committee, Ojas and also visiting the Airport
Authority of India as part of the ADMAP project has helped me hone my skills as an
administrator. Finance Conclave needed me to liaise with the admin staff, faculty in charge,
SBAC core committee and also peers which gave me an overall understanding of the process

of decision making and influencing without power. I had to manage the people and I was
learning this through ADMAP.
Synthesis: Administration is not a theory that can taught but a practise that needs to be
followed and the art of learning administration is through doing.

Administrative Context
The administrative context enables us to understand the environment in order to take
effective decisions in compliance with the environmental conditions . A thorough
understanding of the administrative context enables the student to plan the actions and
also analyse the results of the actions along the same lines. It also helps in understanding
the centralized/decentralized nature of the decision making process existing in a committee.
Proposition: Effective distribution of roles and responsibilities help in increasing
accountability and also increased performance.
Experience: The first task of the committee was the allocation of roles and responsibilities
and also to decide if the previous years framework needs to be
continued/modified/discarded. The primary decision undertook at the committee was the
election of the Course Coordinator (CoCo) for Finance Conclave whose primary
responsibility was to interact with the faculty and the admin staff to get all the prerequisites
for a meeting in place well before the meeting. The CoCo (Srishti) was also responsible for
the creation of the Minutes of Meeting (MoM). The delegation of the task to a specific
person enabled accountability and effective communication between the faculty and the
members of the committee. The net decision to be taken was on the lines of an event to
engage the students of the college which would also act as an event that introduces the
Finance Conclave team. The decision to start a fortnightly quiz which would be conducted
online was arrived upon. Again the responsibility of organising the quiz was handed over to
me while we ensured that the marketing of the quiz would be handled by Raad. Aman
would also be in charge of framing the questions while all three of us would be responsible
for the evaluation of the responses. The next task was the decision on whether to continue
with the newsletter. It was initially decided that Finance Conclave, EcoForum and CFSA
would release a single newsletter catering to the Finance world . But after further
discussions with the other committees, the decision to send out a newsletter was scrapped,
due to possible low interest in the batch for a newsletter. Providing a context to each of the
individuals in the committee helps them take decisions in a rational manner with the
decision incorporating the environment and the surroundings in which the decision is taken.
This decentralized mode of leadership in the committee helped in efficient decision making
process and also in ensuring increased responsibility and efficiency.
As per Selznick (1957), Executive leaders may find it difficult to decide on and implement
reforms because of problems of control. These may result either from conflict among leaders

or from cultural resistance towards reforms that are not culturally compatible with
traditional cultural norms and values in public organization
Conflict management is a key part of any organization/ committee. In our committee,
conflict management in terms of decision making was usually resolved through rational
persuasion and trough group voting. We always ensured that there is logical decision
making in place and also the group is satisfied with the decisions taken.
As per Christensen and Laegreid, 2006, A core organizational mechanism is specialization,
which determines which tasks and relations can be grouped together and coordinated and
which can be separated
Analysis of the skill sets and providing the tasks as per the roles was an integral part od the
decision making process. It was further aided by the ADMAP feedback on the personality of
the individuals in the group as Entrepreneur, Manager and Leader. It provided a reference
point to allocate tasks.
Synthesis: It is highly imperative for an organization/committee to have an accountability or
responsibility structure and all the stakeholders need to be involved in the decision making
process to enable an effective system.

Administrators role
Administrators Roles define our position in an organization and also understand the
expectations from us. It also helps in understanding the powers and limitations associated
with a position in an organization.
Proposition: It is essential for the manager to effectively assign the roles in an organisation
and it is the responsibility of the members to respect the roles assigned to them and
perform the tasks accordingly.
Experience: The delegation of tasks was performed during the execution of the conclave. I
was responsible for the management of the stage and was also responsible for the logistics
of the event inside the auditorium. The most important and critical decision taken was that
the students who had brought in panellists/ speakers were to act as the first point of
contact to them as they arrive at the campus. I was therefore allotted Mr Madan Padaki and
Mr Vinod Wadhwani. We had to ensure that constant communication was maintained with
the panellists so that they have a pleasant experience at SPJIMR. I was also nominated as
the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) from the Finance Conclave to the SBAC Core Committee.
One of the primary tasks of the SPOC was to attend the meetings with the core committee
and discuss the plan of action of the committee and provide updates to the core committee
on the deliverables and the progress of the committee. It was also essential to maintain a

tab on the progress of each of the actionable item and also to voice out the concerns of the
committee to the core committee. As part of improving my Administrative learning
experience, I had also nominated to be the Event Head of MPower at Ojas and this helped
me immensely in learning the intricacies of running an event which involves a lot of external
participants and where the name of the college is at stake, The event received immense
response for being well organized. The ADMPA project selected by us involved the visit to
the Airport Authority of India and analysing the performance monitoring practises in place
and also to understand the administrative dynamics of the place. It provided us with
tremendous exposure to the working of an organization which I believe will benefit me in
real life to a great extent.
As per Mintzberg, managerial jobs were grouped into eight basic types
(a) Contract Manager (figure head and liaison)
(b) Political Manager (spokesman and negotiator)
(c) Entrepreneur (initiator and negotiator)
(d) Insider (resource allocator)
(e) Real Time Manager (disturbance handler)
(f) Expert Manager (monitor and spokesman)
(g) New Manager (liaison and monitor)
(h) Team Manager (leader role)
It was important to identify the role of each and every individual in the group to see which
role according to Mintzberg they fit in. It was also ensured that there is no redundancy of
roles which would result in reduction of slack in the overall organization.
Mintzberg also stated that Given the crucial importance of communication and the
motivation of people to successful management, it is not surprising that sociocultural factors
would have an impact on how managerial roles are defined and performed
We also ensured that the roles are given to individuals taking into consideration the
sociocultural factors that could affect the decision making process of the individual.
Synthesis: Through ADMAP, I was able to hone my skills at effective delegation of work
which is an important trait of a manager. A group becomes highly effective when the roles
and responsibilities are allotted according to each persons abilities and interest. The ability
to leverage the strengths of each member to produce outstanding results is a hallmark of a
successful manager.

Administrative Process

Administrative process helps us in assimilating the series of tasks involved for seamless
execution of tasks through efficient flow of information It is important to maintain a
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) as it helps in structuring the process.
Proposition: A process needs to be defined and sufficient checks needs to be performed to
ensure that the overall execution is taking place along the same lines as the predefined
process and there are no deviations.
Experience: In order to bring in a process into the overall execution of the event, we
decided to make a minute-by-minute scheduling of the event. It was highly important that
this document was made as it enabled us to plan and structure the event and also ensure
that all contingency plans are in place in case of any delay in the proceedings . I took up the
initiative to design this document. The importance of this document was further magnified
by the fact that ET Now was covering the event and the event had to take place as per
schedule in order to ensure that the reputation of SPJIMR in front of a third party was not
depleted. So meticulous planning was done to ensure that the document contained all
details and also contingency plan was also accounted for.
Also during the planning of the Ojas event MPower, continuous engagement with the
registered participants was the key process that was scheduled to be implemented. This
involved learning of a new tool to enable individualized mass mailers to the participants and
also constant updates to keep them active and interested in the event. It also involved
handling the logistics of the teams arriving for the event. Constant updates with the core
logistics team was essential to ensure smooth proceedings at the event.
Synthesis: It is important for a process to have a SOP and it is also equally important that a
manager follows a people oriented approach rather than a task oriented approach as it
simplifies the process further. The effectiveness of the team is improved by SOPs but the
effectiveness as a team is improved through people oriented approaches

Essential Takeaways
1. The ability to understand the participants and their expectations is a integral part of an
organisation
2. Any SOP , needs to be implemented well to increase effectiveness and this is possible
only by following a people oriented approach.
3. It is important to delegate tasks and play people to their strengths and leverage the
talent pool available.
4. Group consensus in decision making enables decisions to be taken after sound
reasoning.