Program Manager - Project Delivery (Education)

About CEGIS

Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS – pronounced See-Jis) aims to improve lives by helping Indian state governments deliver better development outcomes. We believe that the most impactful lever for accelerating national development is to improve governance and state capacity to better deliver core public services at scale.

Informed by cutting-edge research and evidence as well as a practical orientation toward implementable ideas, CEGIS works with state governments in India to enable a transformative improvement in their functioning. CEGISs vision and Theory of Change (ToC) are an outcome of extensive research done by Prof. Karthik Muralidharan (CEGIS Co-Founder and Scientific Director) and outlined in his multiple award-winning, national bestselling book Accelerating India's Development, and enabled by strategic philanthropic support provided by Ashish Dhawan (CEGIS Co-Founder).

CEGIS Approach and Model of Functioning:

CEGISs solutions to enhance governance are co-created with state governments in a state-led way, where we focus on deep partnerships with states using an iterative cycle of think-demonstrate-document-transfer. We work closely with the top bureaucratic leadership, front-line workers and public officials in Finance, Planning, Human Resources and a few other priority line departments. Many of our solutions reflect ideas outlined in the book Accelerating India's Development, and these solutions are constantly refined based on real-time feedback and are designed to both be customized to the contexts we are working in, and to create templates that can provide the starting point for replication across contexts.

Our focus areas reflect evidence that key characteristics of high-performing organisations include (a) measuring outcomes through reliable, high quality data that enables goal setting and progress monitoring; (b) strategic use of personnel – competency based hiring and training, skilling, and performance appraisals to determine job assignments, pay, and promotions – to achieve the goals above; (c) strategic budgeting where resource allocation and revenue collection are based on evidence and cost-effectiveness; (d) and creating efficient systems to leverage external actors (including for-profit and nonprofit organisations). CEGIS partners with states to improve capacity by focusing on these pillars of State effectiveness, and aims to also integrate these horizontal governance improvements into integrated sectoral roadmaps to accelerate the achievement of state and national development outcomes.

Internally, CEGIS is organized into solutions teams that lead the design and technical quality control of our research and evidence-backed approaches to improving governance and state capacity; delivery" teams that lead state-facing work to contextualize the solutions, and support governments in implementing them; and enablement teams that enable the organization to function smoothly.

CEGIS@6 to CEGIS@10: Building on momentum to catalyse national development

Since its incorporation in 2019, CEGIS has gained significant momentum in building strong collaborations with state government(s) as a trusted partner who can provide both thought leadership and implementation support on key governance reforms. CEGIS position as a non-profit that does not take any funding from the government (other than in-kind contributions of office space/staff) has been a key enabler in earning this trust.

Beginning with 1 state government engagement in 2019, today CEGIS is working across 9 Indian states (Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh). We also partner with union agencies/ministries such as Capacity Building Commission, Ministry of Women & Child Development (MoWCD), and Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) to share insights from our state-level work to inform national-level guidelines and dissemination to other states. Finally, we also take on selected work at the district level to design and test implementation templates.

From a small group of founding members, we have grown to become a team of 150+ members located across the country, and expect to grow to over 200 in the coming year. Led by a former senior civil-servant with deep governance experience; state and solution team leads with decades of domain expertise; and enabling functions led by professionals with considerable corporate experience, the team at CEGIS brings together knowledge and experience that spans various sectors – from development economics, research, governance, management consulting, and social entrepreneurship.

Over the last 6 years, CEGIS has also garnered support for our vision and theory of change from several foundations and philanthropists whose partnership has enabled us to build our organisational capacity as well as continue to experiment and improve our solution design to augment state capacity and governance. With the rapidly growing demand for CEGISs offerings, CEGIS is well-positioned to play a key role in accelerating Indias development.

To explore what the mission of CEGIS is and the impact we hope to have, please take a look at this video of our CEO, Dr Vijay Pingale.

Position Summary

The Program Manager (PM) will oversee CEGIS' collaboration with various government departments in Telangana, managing projects within these departments to implement CEGIS's theory of change. They will be an integral part of the Project Delivery Team (State Team), ensuring the successful design and implementation of solutions for improved governance. The PM will work closely with government stakeholders throughout each project phase, ensuring timely delivery of high-quality outputs.

Role and Responsibilities

Data Analysis and Management:

• Identifying, obtaining, and collating relevant information and data, and performing
  quality control to ensure validity and accuracy of data
• Overseeing field and desk research using qualitative and quantitative analysis, and
  relevant tools as necessary
• Ensuring application of organization-wide protocols designed for data protection,
  data management on the assigned projects
• Safeguard sensitive project information and minimise data protection risk by adhering to data protection protocols

Analysis and Insights:

• Reviews accuracy and validity of research and data collected for meaning making
• Evaluates the solutions proposed by vertical teams in the context of the project scenario and known limitations
• Suggests changes in approach or process to suggested solutions.
• Research government policies and schemes to assess current program design and scope for intervention.
• Refines problem statement and proposed solution based on insights from the ground.

Project Delivery / Management:

• Identifies and structures problems, synthesising hypotheses and, developing and
  applying appropriate analytical frameworks and approaches
• Works closely with sector leads and CEGIS technical teams, government
  stakeholders and senior academics (wherever required), to tailor data-driven solutions to local context, and translate technical rigour to on-ground implementation
• Drafts high-quality written documents and presentations
• Provides management oversight on day-to-day activities in each project to ensure
  timely delivery of high-quality outputs
• Proactively identifies risks and issues affecting tasks or workstream delivery, and
  promptly communicating upward with proposed solutions
• Identifies delays, bottlenecks and challenges in meeting project goals and consults internally to formulate strategies to mitigate.
• Ensure overall project documentation to aid tracking changes in project scope, delivery including key learning, best practices etc. and sharing with other teams

Client and Partner Management

• Identifies areas of alignment and conflict with stakeholders on project goals by proactively anticipating Stakeholder needs.
• Suggests the right approach and ideas based on a deep understanding of Stakeholder needs
• Actively partners with Government (Department heads and second line), and other stakeholders, to define project workstreams
• Communicates project progress, outcomes and insights to Client through visually compelling presentations and analysis.
• Creates systems for partnerships between government and other stakeholders and helps identify an external advisory group of individuals and organisations
• Builds relationships with potential collaborators or partners, donors and research institutions.

Knowledge Management & Documentation

• Develops knowledge products like concept notes, success stories of projects, learning documents of a project (to roll-out to other States) etc.
• Prepares detailed presentations, reports, and briefs summarizing project progress, data analyses, and research findings for dissemination at various fora.

Required Qualifications, Skills and Abilities

• Masters degree or equivalent in economics, statistics, mathematics, public policy, engineering, management, social science, or related fields from a reputed institution
• Minimum five (05) years of relevant work experience in one or more of the following areas: Management/strategy consulting or governance/development
• Public service with a government (preferably state governments) or quasi-government body as a project manager, young professional, or fellow
• Familiarity with governance interventions in education / public health /nutrition/ local governance/ law and order/ livelihoods/ agriculture sectors would be a plus
• Project/ program management or implementation roles with governments, advisory entities, multilaterals, international development institutions or strategic philanthropy firms
• Experience of working on projects with the Government would be an advantage

Personal Characteristics and Desired Qualities

• Fluency in Telugu and English
• Excellent problem-solving and strategic thinking skills, strong research aptitude ability to analyse complex quantitative and qualitative data and formulate solutions
• Excellent writing and communication skills (ability to communicate complex ideas in a meaningful way and across different audiences) within and outside the organisation
• Demonstrated relationship-building ability and management of high-level relationships with partner organisations, ideally based on experience of working with Indian state governments
• Strong planning and organizational skills, and an ability to be able to set priorities, plan timelines and meet deadlines
• Passion for improving the effectiveness of Indian States, and alignment with CEGIS theory of change/ impact
• Operating style suited to working independently and in a small organisation setting, where teamwork and resourcefulness are highly valued
• Ability to work under pressure by handling competing priorities, strong planning and organizational skills, and an ability to be able to set priorities, plan timelines and meet deadlines, maintaining attention to detail and delivering high-quality outputs
• Ability to think creatively, willing to take risks to experiment with new ideas and the ability to turn ideas into action
• High ability to collaborate and actively listen to others, understanding and valuing others views
• Versatility to be comfortable taking on different projects and quickly dive into new sectors

Location and Compensation

Location: Hyderabad, with possible travel to other states.

Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy and social sector pay scales and will depend on the candidate's experience levels.

Interested candidates are requested to submit their applications

Note: CEGIS has zero tolerance for sexual harassment. We therefore expect each applicant to self-declare related to the same. CEGIS could, if required, initiate a prevention of sexual harassment-based background verification. If an applicant is reported for misconduct, appropriate action that may include employment termination would be taken. Please complete the details for self-declaration on the application form.

Pre-reads for the application process

Please go through the following materials before sending in your application:

• CEGIS Overview
• A glimpse into life at CEGIS -CEGIS Retreat 2024
• State Capacity, Governance, and Public Systems — Prof. Karthik Muralidharan on Seen & Unseen with Amit Varma – on education, healthcare, federalism and state capacity, and bureaucracy in India.
• You are also strongly encouraged to read Prof. Karthik Muralidharans book Accelerating Indias Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governance (especially Chapters 1, 4, 5, 6, 10, and 11), which informs much of CEGIS's work and theory of change.

Recommended listening:

• Karthik Muralidharan Episodes on SparX by Mukesh Bansal: Podcast Episode 1, Podcast Episode 2, Podcast Episode 3.
• Karthik Muralidharan: Indias Roadmap for Effective Governance — FED Dialogues: Podcast Episode.

Karthik Muralidharan on Making Governance More Effective — Sushasan | Podcast.