Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are revamping their courses and even the pedagogy for the class of 2019-21, as they seek to make those more industry-relevant. The incoming batch can expect more role plays, live projects, experiential learning through outbound activities and interactive teaching sessions with not just faculty members but also people from industry. IIMs expect courses on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to become more popular with students and are preparing to meet such requirements as well, two faculty members said.IIM-Calcutta is currently revamping its two year PGP (post-graduate programme in management) curriculum to make all students industry-relevant. One of the key objectives of this review is to bridge the gap between students who have a work experience with those who don’t have that. “Considering that over half the PGP batch enters the programme with little or no work experience, they find it difficult to fit these disparate pieces into the jigsaw puzzle called management,” said Runa Sarkar, dean (academic) at IIM-Calcutta. To begin with, the institute would conduct a 15-hour workshop, ‘An introduction to Management’, during the orientation week of PGP starting 2019.This interactive workshop would be held as a free-flowing conversation among two to four faculty members, section wise, with interventions from students. Apart from its own professors, IIM-Calcutta is also planning to rope in senior executives from industry to conduct these sessions to expose the students to the corporate world. The focus of the workshop would be on the functioning, resource management, decision making, etc., in an organisation, said Sarkar. IIM-Indore is also revamping its courses. “We are looking forward to making our courses more skill-based and our students industry ready,” said Ranjeet Nambudiri, dean of academics.Going forward, IIM-Indore would focus more on participant-centric learning process through simulation and live cases, said Nambudiri. Last year, it had introduced PGP HRM and the coming year it would be focusing on stabilising the existing courses with no new course in the pipeline.Live projects are quite popular among participants of the one-year post graduate programme for executives (PGPEX) at Calcutta. More than half the PGPEX students are involved in live projects, which give them a hands-on experience on the subjects, said Sarkar. Others are also tweaking their courses and teaching methods so as to meet the requirements of the changing business and technological environment.In 2018, IIM-Kozhikode introduced a course called Leadership 4.0 and those on the dynamics of machine learning and AI. “We want to get into high-tech, high-touch courses,” director Debashis Chatterjee said. Kozhikode also launched a course on behavioural leadership and tied up with Stanford to roll out courses on design thinking and disruptive innovation in their executive programme. In addition, the institute is targeting more international accreditations in the coming year. Kozhikode is tweaking its pedagogy by focusing more on making learning more application-driven. “We want to take the courses out of the classroom,” said Chatterjee.Course revamp is a gradual process and IIMs Bangalore and Ahmedabad are going to focus on the changes introduced a year or two ago. IIM-Bangalore is not making any changes to its curriculum for 2019, but will concentrate on building its course on entrepreneurship as part of the core. It is also making increased use of innovative methods, to teach management students through pedagogical tools that include simulation games, flip-classes and in-class roleplay exercises, said Abhay K Ojha, dean of academic programmes. “In the coming year, there may be some minor changes like we have done in last year in line with adding innovative ways of teaching,” said Shailendra Singh, director of IIM-Ranchi.Across the IIMs, students are getting more drawn towards analytics and analytics-based courses like data mining and predictive analysis, digital marketing courses, courses in strategy like simulations. In the last two years, IIM-Ahmedabad added courses in data analytics, big data, business analytics, bitcoin, Internet of Things and behavioural finance.“We follow a case-study approach, predominantly. We’ve also added experiential learning, live projects and field work,” said Shailesh Gandhi, dean (programmes) at IIMAhmedabad.