#cscmexico6

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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. 

[ibmcscmex6]

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!

[ibmcscmex6]

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!

[ibmcscmex6]

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!