Profile:

He holds a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, with specialization statistical and neural pattern recognition. Towards the end of my degree, he felt that the high-tech world he was living- and thinking- in was very disconnected from the under-privileged world and he wanted to make a difference to it.
 
Since then, he had worked for 3+ years in the marketing and financial analysis department of one of largest credit card issuers in USA, Capital One. Over this period, he has been coaching himself to apply what he learnt in school in the context of marketing and consumer finance, which he felt were much more relevant to the up and coming social entrepreneurs in India. At the time of offering his services, he was a Senior Business Manager in his Company here and leading some of their marketing and product strategies.

He has also been spending time with Asha since Nov 06 and has been using the time to begin to understand some of the problems at the grass-roots level.

Brief given:

• To come with an appraisal of the present scenario under Sikshana
• To recommend suitable steps for scaling the Program to higher levels

Recommendations 

1. Task - Develop Mentors into Managers

• Focus today on developing the “middle-management” of tomorrow
• A number of considerations make Sikshana mentors the ideal target group
– Aspects of role readily provide managerial exposure 
– Full-time employees -- role at Sikshana is primary professional focus
– Paid performers -- fully accountable to mgmt
• The leadership team should therefore work systematically towards creating an environment where mentors can be developed into effective managers

2. Need - An Operations Manager and his Profile

• Strong values
– Naturally assumes responsibility for fulfillment of org objectives
– Is focused on “big picture”, can differentiate “urgent” and “important”
• Leadership ability
– Able to leverage local organization to optimize/ innovate programs
– Can get folks w/ different priorities to sign up to a common goal
– Recognizes the importance of building teams to achieve goals
• Managerial ability
– Should be able to prioritize programs within a budget
– Able to oversee the implementation and monitoring of programs with a strong focus on achieving organizational performance standards
– Leverages all types of performers to achieve efficiencies
– Effective in developing a new generation of managers
– Can identify and secure local infrastructure needs

3. Mentors at Different Levels

Level 1 - Trainee

Typical role: Shadow Mentor I for 1-2 weeks and prepare report on observations. Have a moderated discussion w/ peers on what an ideal mentor I looks like.

Reward: Advancement to Mentor I, visiting cards  

Level 2 – Mentor 1

Typical role: Execution-- Visit schools, check and collect logs, data collection for analysis, data organization, perform tasks like getting train tickets, help with analysis
Reward based on: Inclination to take responsibility and show attention to detail. Creation of efficiencies

Typical reward: Employee ID card, employment contract  

Level 3 – Mentor 2

Typical role: Self-directed execution and analysis-- For self and juniors design school visit plans that include visit schedules and on-site activities as per org needs. Design analysis towards program optimization and prioritization. Carry out analysis leveraging juniors, volunteers, school faculty, etc. 
 
Reward based on: Degree of responsibility assumed towards solution of challenge/ problem. Performance impact created by analysis; Ability to leverage others towards goals; Ability to prioritize day-to-day tasks for self and juniors based on short-term objectives.  

Typical reward: Financial incentives, “stretch” opportunities, public recognition, training to help towards a corporate career, help getting access to financial instruments

Level 4 – Senior Mentor

Typical role: Program management-- Lead the design, development and execution of key Sikshana programs. Optimize programs to boost impact/ Re. Leverage full spectrum of performers to achieve goals. Solve through infrastructure and organizational hurdles.  

Reward based on: Strength of focus on results. Performance efficiencies created through leverage or even discontinuation of program. Ability to inspire responsibility
and ownership in juniors.  

Typical reward: Financial incentives, “stretch” opportunities, exposure to senior leadership and donors, public recognition, exposure towards a corporate career,

4. Create advocates/ champions for prominent functional areas

• Especially as an organization gets increasingly de-centralized, very little will get done without a passionate and powerful champion
– Who in the organization will obsess over whether volunteers are feeling fulfilled?
– What about whether donors received the report they requested?
– How about whether the tax statements got filed on time?
– Who wonders whether “mentors” are OK with their title?
– As importantly, will they naturally be rewarded for this?
• Recommend creation of functional areas and the dedication of individuals to finding and addressing issues:
– At a given time, there should always be an individual tasked with and incentivized to solve specific organizational problems
– Performers can be rotated through the organization to add variety, increase exposure and avoid super-specialization

5. Proposed Organization