Op Sindoor - Pride Without Prejudice

Shershah
Uri The Surgical Strike
Lagaan
Ain't these the titles of Hindi feature films?

Yes.

What about them?

These films make excellent teaching and learning aids.

How?

We let the students watch the film and then select few clips/instances for discussions in the class.

What do you discuss?

The lessons that can be drawn from the story. The correlation with relevant concept or theory being taught otherwise.

How does it help?

It helps in understanding the concepts and how is it useful in real life. It helps in internalisation of the concepts and theories as applicable. It makes the learning more experiential.

Sounds cool.

Add to the above list real life incidents or events in real-time. Such real-life events also help in experiential learning. And if done in real-time (immediately after the event), it generates a lot of debate and excitement in the class.

This story is based on a real-life event, Operation Sindoor. Although it happened in 2025, yet it re-surfaced few weeks ago. While teaching a one-semester core course on Project Management(PM), we chose Op Sindoor to bring out many concepts of PM. Sharing below some of the takeaways from the case discussions.

Was Op Sindoor a Project?

In simple terms, a project is one-off, not repeated, has a start and end, a well defined objective and outcome, which demand resources. The MBA class unanimously said yes it was a Project. See the pictures below of the two cohorts of 50 students each. They look energised after the case discussion, right?

Any reader who thinks otherwise, your views are welcome in the comment field.

Similarly, the discussion on following topics saw active participation from the students:

Who was the Project Manager?

What was the Objective of the Project?

How was it achieved?

How was Project Planning done? What were the options?

Who executed the Project?

Were multiple agencies involved in execution? How were they monitored and controlled?

What was the outcome? How was it measured?

Who were the stakeholders?

How was the communication to the stakeholders managed? Was it effective?

What were the risks? How was risk mitigation done?

Was it just a Military Operation? If not, what else and why?

Sharing another picture of the 'live' case discussion steered by Vaishnavi, one of the students.

Another student Vishwashanthi was present in J&K at the time of Pahalgam attack. She wrote, "In April 2025, I went on a trip to Jammu and Kashmir with my friends to explore its beautiful tourist destinations. We had been enjoying our journey and visiting different places. On 22 April 2025, while we were near the Vaishno Devi Temple in Katra, we heard the heartbreaking news about the Pahalgam attack."

"The news came as a complete shock. I felt scared and anxious because we were also in Jammu and Kashmir at that time. The atmosphere suddenly became tense, and everyone around us was talking about the incident and checking for updates. I immediately called my family to let them know that I was safe.Although we were safe, that moment reminded me how quickly situations can change. It was an experience I will never forget, and my thoughts and prayers are with everyone who was affected by the tragedy."

Thank you Shanthi for sharing your memories.

An opeartion like Sindoor has lessons in many other subjects and areas like, Strategy, Leadership, Decision Making under Uncertainty, Team Work, Goal Setting, Contingency Planning, Resource Mobilisation, Technology Adaptation, Media Management, International Relations etc. But we had restricted our discussions to the lessons in Project Management to keep the story short.

Corporate Lessons

While discussing the above questions, we also brought out the corresponding lessons for the corporate world. The whole exercise appeared very meaningful. The students seem to have internalised the Project Management topics with clarity and ease. Thank you the PGDM Class of 2027 at VVISM Hyderabad for your wholehearted participation.

Question for the Reader

Whether you are an MBA grad, student, working professional in any field, home maker, parent, grandparent, veteran or any other netizen, what was the most significant outcome of Op Sindoor? Mail your response to hbindia@gmail.com or leave a comment. Selected responses with names will be included as Postscript.

Postscript 28th July: None of the readers responded to the above query. However, two of the students nailed it! The most significant outcome of Op Sindoor was not the destruction of the terrorist camps but enhancing of the National Pride. Don't you think so?

End of Postscript.

The Title

Did you like the title of this story? The credit for suggesting the title goes to Padma Ramesh, an accomplished journalist and former Dean of a PG Institution of Media Studies. In her own words:

"I thought of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's novel! (When I saw the word) --a Literary echo.

There is pride in what we achieved with Op Sindoor. The phrase "without prejudice" implies pride that isn't driven by bias or hatred."

Thanks Padma for creating such a befitting title for our story.

Experiential Learning - Some More

Ghumakkad has been a strong proponent of experiential learning. As a child, most of our learning has been experiential. Learning by doing, simple yet effective. But as we go up the 'education' ladder, experiential learning takes a back seat. It is more of lecturing. Sharing below some of my endeavours at experiential learning for my MBA students. You may click the link to browse the corresponding story.

Uri The Surgical Strike - Many lessons in Management from a feature film

Shershah Beyond The Movie - Based on the real-life story of Capt Batra of Kargil fame, the movie brings out many lessons in Leadership, Team Work, Task Orientation etc

Teachers Also Love Outdoors - Real learning happens outside the classroom.

Real-Time Cases for MBA Teaching - How to design and conduct the classes for enhanced experiential learning. Faculties are free to reach me for details.

Thanks for browsing. Do share your experience of making the teaching and learning more experiential.

We firmly believe that knowledge gets multiplied when shared.

Stay connected.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad/ Secunderabad/ 18th July 2026/ hbindia@gmail.com 

Postscript:

21 July: Vinay Bhargava, an experienced marketeer wrote; "Indeed military operations are very inspirational as it involves clear aim, astute planning, dedicated research, inputs, execution etc.

In our marketing campaigns to inspire sales team we based many on wars and used terms as pincer movement in strategies. Excellent!"

#learning #teaching #ExperientialLearning #VideoCases #CaseMethod #MBA #PGDM #VVISMHyderabad #OpSindoor #Shershah #UriTheSurgicalStrike #LearningFromMovies #ManagementEducation #RealLife #RealTime #PahalgamAttack #ProjectManagement

Teaching Design Thinking Differently

'Design Thinking- such a drab subject!'

'We know the five phases - EDIPT!' 

'We have seen enough examples on YouTube.'

When your MBA class is so forthright in expressing their views, you have to think differently. Taking a cue from Dr Abdul Kalam's famous quote 'Creativity is seeing the same thing as everybody else, but thinking differently', we converted the remaining sessions of the course 'Innovation In Business' into a Design Thinking Workshop. In a workshop you are supposed to use some 'tools' and 'do'  and 'make' something like in a carpentry workshop. 

We asked the class if they would recommend the college to others? The answer was a chorus 'No'! Do they regret the decision when they joined the college? This time another chorus 'Yes'! When asked why, many reasons came up. That ignited Ghumakkad's mind to do a 'live' workshop on issues plaguing the students' minds. For a class of 70 students, we identified 24 'live' issues being faced by the students. Teams of three each were free to choose any one issue. The process was repeated for both the sections of 70 students each. The die was cast. Few of the issues selected by the students are listed below. Am sure students at other colleges would not feel much differently.

• Improving student quality
• Developing college pride & sense of belonging
• Branding of the College
• Entrepreneurial Support
• Attendance through biometrics

Each team was given 48 hours to complete the first step of Design Thinking 'Empathise'. It involved interacting with the people concerned for the issue at hand. It could be other students, faculty, staff or management of the college. It could also be other colleges in the same geography. By actually empathising with the people concerned, the students learnt the nuances of Step-1 of design thinking. Whether it was mere observations or an interview or a focussed group discussion or collection of facts and figures, the students gained 'insights' of the issue at hand. These insights were then utilised for further steps of Design Thinking.

Remaining steps namely Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test were completed by each team after two days in the class itself. Breakout areas gave freedom for brainstorming. The teams had two hours to deliberate the issue and apply the design thinking to come up with suggested solution. The teams were also given a chart paper and coloured markers to summarise their design thinking effort and present it to the class for greater learning. The posters were thereafter displayed in the college foyer for wider viewership by other students, faculty, staff and management of the college. The whole event thus generated lot of enthusiasm and energy by the students in experiential learning mode. Sharing few pictures of the event below.

Through the workshop, the students could address many real-life issues like how to select the internship company? Big vs small? Branded company vs a startup? And so on.

The whole design thinking workshop was conceived on the go. The idea came because of students' disenchantment with the college (a normal reaction towards the end of the two-year-PGDM-program). Germinated in the class, a 'drab' subject was successfully transformed into an invigorating and participative workshop. It led to experiential learning. See the video clip below of the poster designing in progress.

For teachers like Ghumakkad, there is never a dull moment. With 140 inquisitive and restive minds around, it is a pleasant challenge to devise and conduct such 'live' learning events. Special thanks to all the students who participated, both the class reps and Dr V Jayashree for the wholehearted support.

Sharing below the links to some of our other 'live' teaching and learning events which had also ensured experiential learning at PG level:

Uri the Movie- Management Lessons

Shershaah Beyond The Movie

Real Life to Real Time Cases

Hope you enjoyed the teaching and learning of Design Thinking with Ghumakkad. Do share your experiences of other modes of experiential learning.

Thanks for browsing.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with the PGDM Class of 2024@VVISM Hyderabad/ 30th March 2024

#learning #experiential #PGDM #MBA #highereducation #nep2020 #designthinking #workshopmode #reallifeissues #insights #innovationinbusiness #creativity #learningbydoing #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh

Shershaah - Beyond the Movie

"Yeh dil maange more" ये दिल मांगे more!

"Dushman ek chalaye to aap do chalao" दुश्मन एक चलाए तो आप दो चलाओ.

"Waapas to zaroor aaonga, tiranga le kar ya phir tirange mein lipta hua" वापस तो ज़रूर आऊँगा, तिरंगा ले कर या फिर तिरंगे में लिपटा हुआ 

These words of Capt Vikram Batra, Param Vir Chakra, kept echoing in our mind much after seeing the movie Shershaah. The movie is based on the life of a brave son of India who made the supreme sacrifice in the Kargil war.

Ghumakkad conducted a video case study based on the movie Shershaah in his PGDM class. The students were asked to watch the movie before the class. The posters in the picture below are courtesy the film producers.

Old movies like Lagaan, Patton, Twister, The Bridge On The River Kwai etc have been used for management lessons in many B-schools earlier. But we wanted to use a recently released movie and derive lessons for MBA students. It adds to the excitement in the class both for the students as well as the teacher. The teacher has to prepare in advance. Which scenes to discuss, what questions to ask and which concepts or lessons will it bring out? Needless to add that the effort was worth it. Video cases are a powerful pedagogical aid, specially for management education. It also helps the institutions to keep their syllabus current.

The video case discussions were based on the movie. We did not discuss whether the movie portrayed Capt Batra's life or the Army operations accurately or not. That is left to innumerable film critics. Our case discussions were focussed on learning from real life and thus brought out the following lessons from Shershaah the movie:

1. Leadership
2. Motivation
3. Goal setting and goal clarity
4. Team work
5. Inter-personal relations
6. Courage and fearlessness
7. Decision making
8. Building trust
9. Group Dynamics
10. Leading from the front
11. Dealing with uncertainty
12. Determination and Perseverance
13. Ethics and Values
14. Nation first
15. Task Orientation
16. Training and Development
17. Competency Mapping
18. Managing failures
19. Staffing Decisions
20. Humility

Any teacher or student who wants to know which scene in the movie to correlate with the above concepts or topics can mail me at hbindia@gmail.com . It would be my pleasure to help. I firmly believe that knowledge multiplies with sharing.

Two years ago, we had conducted another video case study based on the movie URI- The Surgical Strike. It also generated lively discussions in the class. You may browse our story linked below which has been read by more than 3000 management professionals/teachers/students:

Uri The Movie with Many Lessons in Management

Do give your feedback if you have also conducted any of the above case studies based on these two movies.

In the Google-dominated world, the students love being 'current'. We conducted the case study within a fortnight of the movie being released. It added to the thrill factor of learning. Had the classes not been on-line, the level of excitement would have been a notch higher. But Covid dictated otherwise. Let Covid not bog you down! Class of 2022 at VVISM Hyderabad- you guys did a great job!

Just one more thing. We have neither been retained nor paid for promoting this movie. It is purely for purposes of learning and sharing. It should not send a wrong message otherwise.

Thanks for browsing. Stay connected.

   - Harsh-the-teacher-Ghumakkad/27th Aug 2021

#mba #pedagogy #casemethod #videocases #learning #reallife #Managementlessons #shershaah #googledominatedworld #beingcurrent #learningwithfun #learningtogether #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #teaching #teacheraslearner #beyondgoogle #thrilloflearning #beatingthecovid

B-Plan Finalists: Selected by the Contestants

Ever heard of the contestants selecting the finalists of a Contest? Audience-based polls are done in many contests both on-line as well as face-to-face. But we let the contestants decide their own finalists. Some of you may say that such choices will always be biased. Because every contestant wants to win, every contestant feels he/she is the best. Therefore, can such assessment be kept objective and fair? How? Read on.

Finals of the Annual Business Plan Contest of the course that I teach will be held shortly. We had 25 teams presenting their B-Plans to a class of 75 PGDM students undergoing the course 'Entrepreneurship and Startup Management'. We had to select eight finalist teams out of 25 teams. This year, we used 'peer assessment' technique to get the contestant's assessment of all other teams. In addition, an inter-disciplinary team of faculty evaluated each of the B-Plans. Each team had to follow a template and were assessed on both the written B-Plan as well as their presentation in the class. After every presentation, the anonymous assessment by each of the remaining 24 teams (n-1) was recorded. The faculty made their independent assessment. 

On completion of all the presentations, the data was collated to determine the eight finalists. There was a strong correlation between peer assessment and faculty evaluation. Out of eight finalists, seven choices were identical. The choice of eighth finalist differed because peer assessment did not include hard-copy evaluation, which was done only by the faculty. So, what is the lesson in this mode of assessment? If the contestants are given a well-defined template and asked to do a dispassionate and objective assessment, they will be honest. Trust your students, they will deliver! Statistical randomness may still be there in peer assessment, but it gets evened out.

It was a fulfilling experiment by Ghumakkad as a teacher. In turn, it empowered my students to be fair and honest judges of their peers' performance. Of course, the corporate world uses peer reviews in the 360 degree employee performance measurement. Ghumakkad thus brought another facet of real life into the classroom!

Talking of bringing realism into the classroom, you may like to browse some of our earlier stories linked below:
Teacher 10 on 10: Teachers expect their students to score 10 out of 10. But are the teachers also 10 on 10?

Bringing Realism into the Classroom: What do the students want?

Making Classroom a Fun Place: How to make your class interesting?

Congratulations to the entire PGDM Class of 2020 at VVISM, Hyderabad for a job well done. We wish all the best to the finalists listed below in alphabetical order of their Startup names:

1. Diabilicious
2. Earn My Bread
3. Eat Me Up
4. Eco Pencils
5. E-Purohit
6. Maid in India
7. My Bus
8. Petals

The Finalists have more work to do. Get on with it!

Special thanks to Dr Ritu Bihani and Prof KV Lakshman for their assistance in selecting the finalists.

Learning never ends!

     -   Harsh-the-teacher-cum-Ghumakkad/28th Oct 2019
#startups #businessplans #Bplancontest #pgdm #mba #vvism1 #vishwavishwani #peerassessment #studentsasjudges #trust #statisticalcorrelation #finalists #reallife #classroom #realism #learningbydoing #360degreereview #ghumakkadharsh #ghumakkadhb

Management Lessons in a Forest

Management lessons from a forest visit?
Sounds weird.
Not until you read this story and see the pictures.

Ghumakkad with his PGDM students, went on a Nature Walk in Telangana State Forest Academy Hyderabad. The Academy run by the Forest Department has a program called CAFE- Children And Forest Education. Under this program, the students are taken on a 4-km Nature Trail. The trail goes through a man-made forest which is not very old. The terrain consisting of rocks and boulders has not been disturbed. It is an easy hike fit for all age groups. That is why the Academy gets regular group of students from schools and colleges alike.
As Syeda, one of our students wrote "It was like a bit close to the heavenly Nature, the sound of  the birds, the fresh breeze and pure air."

After uploading the pictures on my laptop, I was wondering whether there were any lessons from the hike? Apart from sensitising the students to Nature, Environment Conservation, Forestation and Awareness about Flora and Fauna- was there anything else? The answer came through the pictures. Am sharing some of the pictures in this story. Few pictures of the flora have been reserved for upcoming KBG (Kaun Banega Ghumakkad) Contests.

Enjoy the pictures and do let us know if you have something to add to the learnings.

Get a feel of the excitement of the students after climbing the rock face in this short 30 seconds video.

Picture story continues.

Vasudhaiv Kutukbakam वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम a Sanskrit phrase, means the whole world is one family! Peaceful coexistence at its best!

We all took back memories as well as learnings from the forest visit. Thank you Dr Dharma Chandra of TS Forest Academy.
With a large group I could not 'shoot' the birds although I could discern the calls in distance. Pictures of birds of the Academy, some other time.

Credit for plant names and research goes to Dr Chitra Shanker. Despite being on an assignment in Australia, she beat the time zones with prompt responses. Thanks again Dr Chitra.

We end with RW Emerson's famous quote on Nature superimposed on a picture of Neem flowers. PQ- the picturesque quote for you!

Thanks readers for your patient browsing. Stay connected.

    -   Harsh-the-Ghumakkad/ 15th Sept 2019
#forestacademy #forest #floraandfauna #nature #environment #plants #trees #managementlessons #learningfromnature #powerofobservation #firstmoveradvantage #teamwork #leadership #conservation #wildflowers #productpackaging #reusability #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #vvism1 #vishwavishwani #vvpgdm