Gathering Requirements and Designing a Solution

Meeting external clients, listening to their requirement and designing a solution has been a great learning experience for me. Different stakeholders come with their own agendas and stories keep changing. Its like a detective work to figure out what will actually bring value to the client. While we did not use formal design thinking methods in our project, we used concepts like empathy map to think of questions to ask the stakeholders.

Tomorrow we get to deliver the final presentation to the client, fingers crossed that it has what they are looking for.

Personally, besides gaining experience as a technical consultant, I also learned some powerpoint, image editing and design thinking techniques from my other CSC teammates. I also got exposure to the healthcare field and challenges faced by doctors and hospital administrators. And while this was not a "planned" visit, I also got to see the inside of the ER in a hospital here as a patient!!! And thanks to the "connections" at the client site,  Dr Semyonova , the CEO of agency for transplantation sent a driver and an assistant with me to the hospital.

Feeling accomplished

Today we conducted a basic excel workshop for the data entry folks at the agency for transplantation. The workshop started off on a dismal note, the attendees filed in looking disinterested and bored. Our opening question was to ask them to write down any excel problems they have. Am sure you can guess the answer .. it was a lackluster murmur of "no we don't have any problems".

But half way through our presentation, there was lively conversation in Bulgarian and judging by their body language and the sparkle in their eyes, we knew that we were being effective.
Laughter soon ensued when we put one of them on the spot and asked her to come and demonstrate a tip we had just taught and the lady happily came and showed the others and posed for pictures.

Think we may have put main IT person ( the only guy in the room) in a bind as we kept telling the others to go to him if they need help! Our idea was to convey the message that repetitive tasks in excel can be automated and that people to should seek the help of the IT person . Think we succeeded in our efforts.

Hotel Life

Another first for me on this trip of a lifetime - spending a month in a hotel. Makes me appreciate people with a travelling job. Hilton, Sofia is conveniently located near a metro station and is a fifteen minute walk from the City Center. Its been interesting observing the folks coming to stay in the hotel - glittzy events, tour buses full of folks all chattering and trooping in, befriending waiters in the lounge, playing cards and chess with teammates, dancing, singing , washing clothes by hand and line drying, towel animals, sleeping on "not my own" bed, missing spending events at home - Diwali, birthday and much more. The last week is here and its almost time to bid this place adieu.

But the best part of this month at the hotel has been to get to know my "young and crazy" CSC Bulgaria 1 teammates.

The latest guests are the team from the US who are here to compete in the Trampoline World Championships in Sofia ,Bulgaria. Myself and Alex are posing for pictures with some of the competitors.