IBM Corporate Services Corps Mexico 6 Team Blog

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Great video about our 4 weeks in Mexico

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Mission completed

The last week was an especially busy one as it was the last on of our 4 weeks. And this meant due date for the final reports to the host organizations: Sub-team 2 “BAMX” did so on Wednesday night, followed by sub-team 3 “DIF” on Thursday morning and Sub-team 1 “Lake Chapala” presented their results to their host organization Thursday afternoon. All of the presentations went very well and each of the host organizations were truly impressed about the quality and the extensive details included.

We were especially excited that Gina Tesla, Director of Corporate Services Corps flew in to see the presentations and also then be present at the big closing ceremony on Friday in the city hall of Guadalajara. During the ceremony each of the sub-teams presented an 8 minutes executive summary of their work and then received awards from the host organizations for the excellent work. The closing ceremony was similar to the opening ceremony a big event with lots of media interest and was hosted by the major of Guadalajara. This closing ceremony officially finished our in-country assignment and as Jaime Kuklinski, Country Director Peace Corps Mexico said in his speech: “Thanks team - mission completed”

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Last day in our office in Chapala

It was with very mixed emotions when we entered into the bus this morning to go to our office in Chapala for a very last time. And especially when we went up the road to the hill that is just before Chapala and then got the view on the lake from the top of it, it became very quiet in the bus and everyone tried to absorb and memorize this fantastic morning view of the lake and the sun mirroring in it.

We had worked hard last week to get all our findings and recommendations into slides and  today’s goal was to bring it all together and go through our consolidated presentation to fine tune slide contents and agree on the flow. We made very good progress and are on track to finalize our report over the next 2 days which are holidays here in Mexico and we will thus work from the hotel.

Thursday is the big day: we are scheduled to present our final report to our host organization AIPROMADES at 4 p.m. that day. We are very much looking forward to that and can’t wait to share our project outcome.

Our last afternoon in the AIPROMADES office had a special surprise for us: we were invited to go to the lake to see the harvesting machine working and also eye-witnessed when the conveyor was put into the water the very first time.

Way too soon the watch showed 4 p.m. and the bus arrived to pick us up again and to bring us back to the hotel. A last good bye to the AIPROMADES team which made us always feel very welcome and as part of the AIPROMADES family. We very much enjoyed being with them and glad we will see some of them again on Thursday for the final presentation and then again on Friday for the closing ceremony.

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DIF/Innovation Team -  Countdown - exiting 3rd week

Just finished an exiting 3rd week of our four-week project work. We started on Monday with an informative meeting with Jonathan from the IT department to better understand what the tasks of the team are in relation to the 27 Community Development Centers, which priorities are set in the short and medium term, and what are the biggest challenges.

During the week, we worked in our project office on the DIF campus. In the meanwhile we have prioritized and analyzed the central problem areas conducting a root cause analysis. On Tuesday, we worked within the team to develop solutions and compare them with the given project goals and desired project results. We focus on the analysis of the course / workshop portfolio, an international bench-marking of innovation & technology courses, and effective KPIs to manage the 27 community development centers, as well as recommendations for a marketing plan to increase demand for community center offerings . On Wednesday we met Mario and Adriana from the Secretary of Innovation of the city of Guadalajara. They are also project sponsors. A good time for us to share our results so far and to validate the feasibility of some solutions.

On Thursday, a communication team from IBM stopped on DIF Campus by to interview Halima from our project team regarding project progress and results as well as our collaboration and experience. Great job, Halima!

As well, Priscila Montserrat and Emilio Montes from IBM Guadalajara had time to discuss. Meeting point was our project office on the DIF campus in Guadalajara. We had brief contact last week as part of our IBM campus visits and our goal for this week was to develop concrete actions between IBM Guadalajara and DIF Guadalajara. After an hour we were ready. The collaboration between IBM and DIF starts in November with an IBM Campus Tour for DIF Community Center students who do attend computer, business administration and English courses. We start with a pilot in the 4 centers, which we visited during the first week of the project before we integrate the other 23 centers. In addition, an IBM On-Demand Community (ODC) project is being initiated looking for committed IBMers in Guadalajara to act as mentors for talented young DIF students. Emilio also offers a coaching program for interested DIF teachers and DIF community center directors. The joint meeting with Martin, the responsible DIF contact, showed that the proposals are being implemented directly. A reason to celebrate!

Another reason - Gracia, our translator, had her birthday !!!

On Friday, we engaged together with Mexican CSC Alumnis from Guadalajara, at an IBM Community Service Day with 200 students at University of Guadalajara’s Ocotlán campus. In addition to a Keynote on IBM Cognitive & Watson, our international 14-member team was asked to run and participate in 5 different workshops. The topics ranged from agile / design thinking to digital marketing to sustainable development. It was a great experience for all the participants. The excitement of the students to get in touch with Frida, the little robot after the Keynote session and the engagement during the Workshops made us very proud. 

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IBM CSC México 6, IBM CSC Alumnis, Peace Corps and AIPROMADES ran together a series of workshops and sessions in Centro Universitario de la Ciénaga. We covered topics like cognitive era, Watson Health, Digital marketing, Design thinking, sustainability and social responsibility. Also we mentored students and gave them feedback on presentations they made.

The star was probably Frida, a robot that is able to communicate like a human being thanks to Watson technology.

It was a very long and intense day. When we left we were all glad we could make a difference on this community day and were grateful for all of the resonance we created, the interest of the students and the great teaming with Peace Corps and AIPROMADES.

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Ready to start the Community Day at Centro Universitario de la Ciénaga. Frida waiting for going on the stage

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Becoming a movie star....

Updates from Sub-team 2 (”BAMX”)

Time is flying....   we are in the middle of week 3 of CSC assignment already!

Since we gained agreement about revising our scope of work with the Director of BAMX last week,  our focus has been on creating recommendations and deliverables. Those will be input for the final presentation to our host organization at the end of our CSC assignment. 

One element of the deliverables was to analyze capabilities for an ERP system, which BAMX is planning to implement across the entire food bank network. We created a catalog of system requirements based on interviews we facilitated with end users at several food banks over the past 2 weeks. Furthermore, we identified gaps of system capabilities in order to establish a baseline for negotiations with the third party vendor. Today, we clarified the analysis via a conference call with the BAMX system team in Mexico City.  The team is now enabled with a fit/gap analysis  and details to discuss with the ERP vendor team.

We received positive feedback about visualizing the requirements from the end-user point of view, to help verify the scope of systematization for each release phases.  Since our exposure to the food bank network and their processes has been limited, it was critical to have these feedback sessions with the BAMX system team, to ensure we have met their needs.

In the afternoon, our team mate Raef Monsour (Tunisia) was the 'Star of the Day' at the food bank.  He was selected to participate in an interview filmed by the IBM Communications crew.  The material will be used as part of IBM's publications to share CSC program values and goals across the world. His performance was right on - being natural, relaxed, knowledgeable and PASSIONATE!

I guess preparing as a team, practicing Q&A with ideas and singing/dancing a Danish song prior, really helped him to relax.   GO TEAM!

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We are half way through…. week 3 already started….. Here is the project status update from sub-team 1, “Lake Chapala”: we spent a lot of time last week with several interviews with AIPROMADES staff members and also had a phone call with Jim Morgan, a Peace Corps volunteer who is based at Lago Necaxa and also working on alternative uses of aquatic weed. The exchange was very helpful and we could all benefit from findings and information everyone has gathered so far. We also started drafting our executive summary which is due this week Friday and agreed on the recommended uses that we will take forward. The remainder of this week is dedicated to work on the full detailed report that we will present next week on Thursday to our host organization and close any data gap that we still have.

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Relax...

Our third weekend in Mexico and we spent it at a marvelous place, in Mazamitla which is at 2.234m and is one of the so called Pueblos Mágico which are villages that are known as very traditional and typical Mexican places and recommended to visit. It is situated in a big forest area, with lots of pines.

Paula booked 2 houses in the resort Monteverde for us and we were prepared for a relaxing and fun weekend. We left our hotel in Guadalajara at 7.30 am and went down to the south, passed Lake Chapala’s east and south end and could finally see all of the agricultural side of the lake (lots of berries and also beans and corn). We arrived in Mazamitla at around 11 a.m. and given the houses would only be ready at 3 p.m. we decided to go for hiking. Half of the group decided to go the waterfall close by while the other half decided for a longer tour. I joined the second and we aimed to go up to the highest point; we followed all the instructions of the receptionist but unfortunately figured out after 2 hours that we either misunderstood the information or the map was simply wrong. When we asked if that was the right way to the top of the hill they told us we took the wrong road. So we ultimately returned and went back through the village center where they were just celebrating a flower festival with music and many lovely decorated houses and cars. Anyway, we did go up (but simply not to the most top point) and had a nice 22 km hike through the forest with nice views.

In the evening we cooked diner together and spent a very funny evening with games and stories and of course some Tequila in our house.

Sunday morning everyone showed up fresh and relaxed and we again split into the 2 groups like on Saturday. This time my group went to see the waterfall which was a nice 1,5 hours walk. The other group did a little walk to the village center.

Back in the hotel we prepared a quick lunch with the remaining food and were then picked up at 2 p.m. to go back to Guadalajara.

This weekend was simply great; we had a good time off, lots of laugher and were able to recharge our batteries for the remaining 2 weeks here in Mexico.

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IBM CSC DIF / Innovation Team - well started in the second week ... and it's Weekend again.

The second week of the project has started well. On Monday, we met on the DIF Guadalajara Service Management Campus for a statusmeeting with our project coordinator Ernesto. It was the opportunity to discuss our impressions and questions from the center visits last week and to clarify open points.

The focus of this week was teamwork in our project office on the DIF campus and on the IBM campus. We consolidated and analyzed the information from the 4 visited community centers. In parallel, we researched best practices for IT / innovation courses for adult education and training, which we can suggest to the DIF management for implementation. A sub-goal for this week was to evaluate the current course & workshop offer of the DIF Community Center using a portfolio analysis. On Tuesday morning Martin, who is responsible for the course offer of the DIF Center as well as for the Center Operations, had time for a discussion. He shared the plans about new courses in the field of innovation and technology, and explained the planning process for new courses / workshops. All of the 27 DIF Centers in Guadalajara are reporting into Martin.

For Wednesday, we had a room with whiteboard and overhead projector at IBM Guadalajara. We had arranged for the office day to bring together, discuss and prioritize the individually developed content and tasks. We worked through socioeconomic data and statistics from our target group, consolidated the information from the community centers visited in the first week in graphs, and evaluated and illustrated the course and workshop offer of the DIF Community Center using a 2 x 2 matrix.

By chance, the IBM Technology Center’s annual commitment day took place on this day. All IBM Business Units, programs and initiatives had the opportunity to present their products and services or a creative idea between 10 am and 3 pm in the context of a small exhibition. We used the lunch break to participate in the event and to get in touch with the Mexican colleagues. Victor, our Spanish-speaking colleague from Chile, was also a welcome guest at the Campus TV.

Thursday was a meeting with Rosa, the head of the DIF Community Development Center Program. She has been in this position since October 2015 and has given us insights into her plans and ideas regarding the DIF Community Center and shared her challenges with us. At the same time, we used the opportunity to present initial results, to validate next steps and to discuss open points. In the afternoon, we worked interactively to redefine the problem and start a root-cause analysis.

On Friday, it went again to the IBM Technology Center in Guadalajara. The entire IBM CSC Mexico team was there. Our local colleagues Xochitl Cuevas Ramirez and Lilia Karla Prado Ruiz have organized a whole day for us. After the welcome by Eugenio Godard Zapata, the director of the technology center and an introduction of Karla Magana Renoud, we started a Campustour including a guided tour of the production plant of IBM Power Systems - thanks to Daniel Angeles Garcia for all the CSC Mexico team a great experience. Subsequently, we met some of the more than 40 CSC Alumnis from Guadalajara to prepare with them the IBM Community Service Day on the last Friday in October. Our CSC Mexico team is looking for the keynote on the subject of cognitive computing, as well as various workshops on Watson Health, design thinking / agile and digital marketing.

The day ended with the preparations for our weekend trip to Mazamitla, a so-called Magical Village on 2234m, famous for its pine forests and wood crafts. Also this excursion we make on recommendation and with the help of our program manager Paula.

We are exited and already had a great day today doing a 3 hour hiking trail to a waterfall and joining the parade of the very colorful ‘Festival Cultural de las Flores’ in the afternoon.

Now barbecue and some other Mexican specialties are waiting …  

Keep posted - more to come!

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CSC MEX 6 meets CSC GDL Alumnis

Our IBM CSC Mexico 6 (with black shirts) team went to IBM Guadalajara today and after a welcome meeting with Eugenio Godard, Director of IBM Guadalajara and a very interesting overview presentation of the site, we meet some out of the 40 IBM CSC Alumnis (with white shirts) from that site. We had a great time sharing experiences and will have the opportunity to collaborate more next week’s Friday when we are going to the University of Guadalajara and together run workshops for the students there.

We also got a tour through the manufacturing building: IBM Guadalajara is building the IBM Power Servers for Americas and Europe (IBM Singapore is producing for the other remaining regions). It was very interesting to see the whole production process, involving receiving the parts, labelling it, assembling it, testing it, shipping it out. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed to be taken except the following one: the whole CSC team + 2 alumnis on the scales

We then went to lunch and spent the remaining afternoon continuing to work on the projects and preparing for the workshop at the university next week. That concluded work week 2 of our assignment and we are now looking forward for a joint weekend in Mazamitla.

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Lake Chapala team starting into week 2

It has been a week since we had our kick-off with AIPROMADES and we did good progress since then. Our team is honored to pilot a cooperation with Peace Corps and have Cara Pratt joining the project team on their behalf.

Last Tuesday AIPROMADES took us on a tour to the lake to see the weed as well as the surrounding areas. This was very valuable to the team as it is much easier to understand what we are talking about if we could live experience it. The main problem is the water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) which is spreading fast and negatively impacting the ecological balance of the sea. When not controlled,it will cover lakes entirely; this dramatically impacts water flow, blocks sunlight from reaching native aquatic plants, and reduces oxygen in the water which causes significant reduction of fish. Also, the plants increase mosquito population. There is also water lettuce (Pistia stratoites) in the lake and it would typically show up between water hyacinth but to a way less big extend and not having that big impact on the ecological balance.

Our team is supposed to find alternative uses for the weed that are socially and economically sustainable.

On Wednesday we were working from the hotel as the AIPROMADES office was closed due to “La Romería”, a local religious holiday. The main discussions we had that day were around the assessment criteria that we want to use for different uses and drafting a research template that we would apply to illustrate the various use options. Also we did a very high level research on potential uses and splitted the found alternatives between the team for further research on required process steps to produce the alternate output, entry barriers and potential constraints, tools and resources ($ & human capital) required to implement, SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threads) analysis, etc.

Thursday we were back to the office in Chapala and intensively researched each of the options. Also, Cara took us through some recent statistics that showed CO2 emissions by municipality and root causes. This may be helpful later on once we start working out recommendations as we may want to show how these are impacting the emission levels. Mexico has also signed the Paris agreement and is thus required to bring its emissions down.

On Friday, Gabriel our host organization leader traveled to Florida to do his driving license for the newly ordered harvesting machine. Many other AIPROMADES team members went on an excursion to Lake Zapótlan that day and we thus decided to stay in the hotel again to conclude our research and consolidate the findings. We figured out the following potential uses: Biogas, Biodiesel, Animal Food, Fertilizer/Compost, Fibre boards, Cement, Medicine/Pharmacy, Bedding for lab mice, Charcoal briquetting, handicrafts and female personal products. We ended the week by preparing for a project progress review with Gabriel on Monday.

The weekend was reserved for team activities and on Saturday we went to Chapala and felt a little proud that we were able to tell a lot about the lake, the weed, the municipalities around the lake and the various focus areas by region (indigenous communities, expat communities, tourism, agriculture).

Week 2 began with very exciting news: finally the harvesting machine arrived last Saturday and Gabriel successfully completed his driving license and is very proud to be the first in Latin America having this certificate. Congratulations!

We then took Gabriel through our findings in the first week, re-assured we are on track and re-confirmed scope and assumptions we were making. Also, we worked with him to complete a stakeholder matrix which would

list all stakeholder of AIPROMADES

show their influence on AIPROMADES (low/medium/high)

illustrate their support level for AIPROMADES (resistant/watching/supporting/driving)

We are planning to repeat this exercise with other team members to see if there is a different perception and then also will interview some of the stakeholders to get their view on AIPROMADES and the activities around the lake and of course their view of the weed.

We spent the rest of the day working to put the various options in a simple chart, created a stakeholder interview guide and did research on international companies that may be interested in future partnerships. Also, we are benefiting from our translator Ana who started researching on local organizations/communities that may be able to support (financially, human capital, etc).

We ended the day with a late lunch in the wonderful garden of AIPROMADES. We decided to order food this time to not loose time to walk to a restaurant as the next ones take an approximate 20 minutes walk (though the restaurants are also definitely very nice there).

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IBM CSC MEX6 wishes "Happy anniversary Haynes & Claire!"

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How time flies - First week for CSCMexico6 -DIF Team

On Monday, directly after the official opening, we met the expanded project team of Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (DIF) Guadalajara including the directors of the project-relevant community centers in our first F2F meeting and briefing on site. Our goal was to get introduced and to agree on the objectives, priorities and approach of the 4-weeks-project.

Our project commissioned by the Secretary of Innovation of the City of Guadalajara and the Ministry of Family is to evaluate the four largest of the 27 DIF Community Centers in the urban area of Guadalajara regarding their course and workshop offerings. The goal of the project is to develop a concept for a redesign of the community centers, in order to establish innovation and technology topics more strongly in the centers.

Equipped with the interview guide we prepared on the previous day and evening, we visited two of the DIF community centers on Tuesday. We went in two VW Beetle together with our two project coordinators, Adriana from the Secretary of Innovation and Ernesto from the DIF Community Center Service Management.

The Community Centers are an instrument of the Family Ministry. In addition to medical services (for example doctors, psychologists, nutritionists), they offer a preschool for children as well as a courses and workshops for professional as well as personal development. The offer is aimed primarily at young people aged 15 and over, and single-parent mothers as well as young men from socially disadvantaged population stratum.

We met the respective directors of the Centers for an interview to get a better insight into the situation in the centers. Our questions focused on the social environment, the center equipment and the offered courses and workshops as well as their biggest challenges in their daily work.

Wednesday, October 12th was a religious holiday in Guadalajara in honor of the Virgin of Zapopan. The procession of the virginal statue to the Basilica of Zapopan is accompanied by thousands of people and celebrated with numerous dances in folk costumes. On this day, we were also pausing our project work for a few hours to witness this local event live.

On Thursday we continued our field trip to visit another 2 of the downtown Guadalajara community centers. We had another good 2 interviews with the Directors of the centers and left at the end of the day with a good first impression, overview and insight on the current situation in the centers. 

Friday we spend working in our project office at DIF Service Center Management Campus consolidating and assessing the information and data we gathered from our primary research. We finished the first week delivering an updated project plan to our stakeholder and producing a SWOT analysis for each Community Center we visited.

Before we left for the weekend the #IBMCSC #CSCMexico6 Team met in an informal team meeting to exchange on status on each of the 3 ongoing projects and prepare the upcoming Community Service Day we are going to run together with the local IBM CC&CA team and CSC Alumni from Mexico. Thanks to our Program manager, Paul from DOT and our IBM Team facilitator Linda, who was flying in for the weekend, this meeting was a great opportunity to keep posted on all ongoing projects, exchange ideas and ask for help on specific issues.

We had great weekend excursions to Lake Chapala and the Pyramids of Guachimontones……  stay tuned for more!

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Sub-team 2 (”BAMX”)

3 days of field trips

Our team was pretty busy form the start ...  we had the opportunity to visit different food banks in different states,  met so many wonderful, kind and welcoming individuals working & volunteering at the BAMX food banks. 

Day 1 - BAMX Colima

The food bank is located in the fourth smallest state in Mexico and smallest population, but has one of Mexico’s highest standards of living and lowest unemployment. At the very north of the state, the border is marked by two volcanoes. 

Colima being a state rich in fruit and vegetable farming, the food bank can rescue an incredible amount of produce to be distributed to communities and share with other food banks as well.  The work of sorting and packing is very manual and handled by staff and volunteers that are beneficiaries of the food bank programs.

Fruit often gets rescued directly from farms.  We had the opportunity to visit a papaya farm and observe and help with very laborious work, in hot conditions, to pick the fruit of the trees. 

Day 2 - BAMX Tepatitlán

On this trip we found a modern built warehouse, with lot’s of space, alternative energy sources, their own bakery, a dental office, Tortillería, community kitchen and water purification center.  Super impressive and an amazing group of people with one goal, to fight hunger and building responsible communities. After touring the facility, we spend time interviewing the members of the staff to understand their operational processes and pain points.  We were treated with a delishesly prepared lunch in the community kitchen.

Second stop - BAMX Zapotlanejo! The food bank here has also been recently rebuilt with a focus on serving food to community, but also socioeconomic programs like facilitating sewing lessons, teaching how to cut hair, nutrition classes and in the future, computer access to complete high school graduation - all available to beneficiaries of the communities. The food bank is 100% powered by solar energy!

Probably the most lasting impression was the visit to a community food drop off,  where families gathered in order to receive their bi-weekly food rations.  We all just wanted to be part of this event and jump in - and our commitment grew even stronger to help with the mission of making the BAMX a more sustainable organization, fighting hunger and poverty in this country.

Day 3 - BAMX León

This morning we headed to one of the largest facilities the BAMX network has in León, part of the macroregion of Bajío within the Central Mexican Plateau. This food bank has been in providing services to the region for 15 yrs, and is not in a wonderful newly rebuilt and extended warehouse.

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Sub-team 1 (”Lake Chapala”) kick-off

From left to right: 1st row (sitting): Haynes Cooney (IBM CSC/US), Birgit Wiesinger (IBM CSC/Austria), Vivianne Farmer (IBM CSC/US), Chris Suda (IBM CSC/US), Jiten Rajani (IBM CSC/India); 2nd row: Francisco Javier Zamora (AIPROMADES/Mexico), Maria Fernanda Roman Lara (AIPROMADES/Mexico), Jaime Kuklinski (Director Peace Corps Mexico/Mexico), Eugenio Godard (Director IBM Technological Campus Guadalajara/Mexico), Gabriel Vazquez (Director AIPROMADES/Mexico), Cara Pratt (Peace Corps Volunteer/US)

After the formal kick-off with all 3 sub-teams in the Centro de la Amistad Internacional, sub-team 1 had its kick-off with their host organization AIPROMADES and Peace Corps on Monday afternoon. Sub-team 1, alias “Lake Chapala” will work on a “Strategic Planning for the Sustainable Use of the Aquatic Weed at Lake Chapala”.

During our sub-team’s kick-off, Gabriel Vazquez, Director of AIPROMADES introduced us to the key team members for this project and gave us a detailed presentation on AIPROMADES’ history, mission, organizational set up and current projects. Also we got lots of very valuable information about the lake itself, the surrounding municipalities and issues related to the invasion of aquatic weed.

In the following discussion we had the opportunity to reconfirm our understanding of the scope and the expected results of our 4 weeks work: We will focus to identify and prioritize possible options for the financially sustainable use of aquatic weed.

In the coming days we will deep dive into research of options, interview stakeholders such as representatives of the municipalities, fishers, expatriates living there, etc. And of course, we’ll go around the lake to see the aquatic weed.

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Formal kick-off at Centro de la Amistad Internacional with approximately 100 guests in the room and lots of press and TV representatives.

Agenda was as follows:

Welcome by Mario Armut Abarca, Director of Innovation Guadalajara Government

Speech by Eugenio Godard, Director of the Technological Campus IBM Guadalajara

Speech by Jaime Kuklinski, Country Director Peace Corps Mexico

Speech by Gabriel Vázquez, Director of AIPROMADES

Introduction of the AIPROMADES / Peace Corps team

Speech by Ruben Oliva, Director of the National Association of Food Banks (BAMX)

Introduction of the BAMX team

Speech by Lorena Martinez, President of DIF Guadalajara

Introduction of the DIF/Innovation team

Official Photos Team & host organisation representatives