1. Mangesh Inamdar, Chief Operating Officer, Sarvatra 10 September 2015
Projects in rural and semi-urban India - customizing basic project management
Mangesh Inamdar, Chief Operating Officer, Sarvatra
10 September 2015

2. Agenda Background – RBI’s sub-membership model
Typical project – stakeholders and deliverables
Ecosystem and challenges
Overcoming challenges via innovative project management
Benefits from application of project management
Conclusion
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3. Background – RBI’s sub-membership model
Enabling cooperative banks in semi-urban and rural areas on ATM and POS devices using EFT switching technology
National backbone run and maintained by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) via a national switch - NFS
Participation in RuPay requires switching infrastructure
Difficulties for cooperative banks:
Switching infrastructure expensive
Technical expertise to setup/maintenance may not be available
Solution: Shared infrastructure through sub-membership model
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4. Shared infrastructure helps banks in semi-urban, rural India avail ATM, POS services
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5. Typical project – stakeholders and deliverables
Main stakeholders - sub member bank, sponsor bank, NPCI, CBS vendor, ATM vendor, card vendor and infrastructure vendor
Main deliverables – bank live on NFS, cards, CBS interface, certification testing, network connectivity
Final deliverables – sub-member able to perform cash withdrawal, balance inquiry, PIN change and other transactions on ATMs
Roughly 150 to 200 tasks performed between 200 to 300 hours of work by the performing organization
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6. Ecosystem and challenges
Cooperative banks slow in adapting technology
‘Project’ carried out as an operation with no planned end dates (no requirement of project schedule/end date in 36% of banks)
Entities external to the performing organization influencing project outcomes
Deliverables owned by external entities deemed as out-of-scope of the performing organization
No stakeholder identification/analysis, communications planning and risk identification
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7. Overcoming challenges
Identify stakeholders, analyse and plan on meeting stakeholder needs
Elaborate scope to stakeholders
Communications planning – scope, deliverables, reports sent to stakeholders at regular intervals
Application of critical path method to reduce project duration
Categorization and standardization of projects
Risks identification and management
Identify milestones, measure progress
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8. Overcoming challenges by innovative project management
Application of three iterations of critical path method led to innovations resulting in quicker deliverables
Usage of a WDVPN dongle reduced project duration from 80 to 67 business days
Using a digital sample instead of a full plastic card reduced duration to a further 52 business days
Satisfying stakeholder needs resulted in a further reduction to 45 days
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9. Duration reduced from 80 to 67 business days by using WDVPN dongle
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10. Further reduction from 67 days to 52 days by using a digital sample of the card
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11. Reduction in project duration from 52 to 45 business days by satisfying stakeholder needs
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12. Categorization of banks and improvement from communications planning
Fast, Average, Slow categorization
Sending ‘old fashioned escalation letters’ rather than communication
Fast = Same or next day response
Average = Response in 2 to 5 days
Fast = Response after 5 days
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13. Total savings after application of critical path method for a sample size of 84 projects
Project Category
# of Banks Before Letters
Best Possible Duration of 80 Days
Total Business Days
# of Banks After Letters
Duration After
Total Savings
Fast 9 80
720 20 45
900
6720 -
5180 =
1540
Average 44
3520 42 60
2520
Slow 31
2480 22
1760
Total 84
6720
5180
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14. Conclusion
Lethargy and slowness in technology adoption in cooperative banking projects in semi-urban and rural India
Lethargy can be overcome by applying basic project management techniques in conjunction with intelligent innovation and improvisation
Duration of ATM, POS implementation projects shortened from more than 80 business days to 45 business days
Communications management – fast, average, slow projects from 11%, 52% and 37% to 24%, 50% and 26% respectively
Total savings of 1540 business days over 84 projects
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