First Working day - The most exciting day ever!!!!

IBM-CDC CSC Orientation Workshop

Even before we had left for Ghana, the agenda for today was already planned. It was the first day we would start our official assignment in Ghana. The morning session was packed with talks from IBM Country General Manager, Deputy Director from the Ministry of Education in Ghana followed by presentations from the clients on their successes, challenges and expectations of IBM. Another item on the agenda was a presentation from the sub-teams on the finalized scope of work and a high level plan.

In anticipation of this presentation, our team had met up on sunday(the day before) to talk about the best and worst case solution we could offer based on the little we understood about the requirements. So far, all our earlier communication with the client had been through not the best telephonic media and over e-mail and this was gonna be the first time we met them face to face and we had to all agree on our target and assignment for the next month!

My clients - camera shy on Day1

I don't know about anyone else.. but I was apprehensive to say the least! By the time the initial introductions were done with, I had already started thinking how the principal looked very serious and some of the others looked like Indian govt people... I was ready to pee in my pants!!!!

You see, we had been prepared by others based on their experience with other schools and in general that our client was a govt organization and would need a push from our end.. and that in Ghana, no one would counter the opinion of a senior person like the Principal so if you wanted their opinion, other means like voting, directed questions were suggested. At the start, in my pre-conceived notion head, it totally looked like we weren't gonna get all our questions answered today!

SOS Presentation - An eye-opener into the world or orphages

Oh! but it so wasn't!!! In my best dreams, I had never imagined we would find such an open minded, driven bunch of individuals! They were the Principal, Assistant Director, Head of IT and professor of Textile and they were brilliant! They clearly had already planned a few things for us - a full week's schedule, some activities and interactions.. for them as well, had started collecting profiles of people they could take the solution forward with.. gosh and were they open to modifying it to what makes sense, eager to work long, work late, whatever it took! They ideated with the principal and gave their own opinions, talked about non-project ideas, listened to and ellicited opinion on how things work in different parts of the country. It was the most wonderful two hours that could ever be. At the end, we not just had a roadmap on what we were going to achieve in the next three and a half weeks, we also had a detailed schedule for the next one and immediate to-dos both for them and us!

IBM CSC 100, IBM CGM Ghana, CDC and all clients

And with all that, they were just such a pleasure. Before this break-out session, we had had lunch with the staff and fun conversation about various things from IBM laptop's lack of stylishness.. to Ghanian festivals ..to food .. to teleconferencing and how Japanese and Ghanians need to see the people they're talking to.. to many things. Probably this bonding is what helped in the actual discussion.. god bless CDC for having the processes in place to enable us to do this.

Gosh, excited about the days ahead!