Other Blogs and Press Release

Check out my colleagues blogs of the adventure:

http://cscghanadeiva.wordpress.com/

And here is the final press release from our work in Ghana:

http://icvonline.org/2012/05/press-release-team-of-ibm-experts-delivers-recommendations-to-ghana-ministry-of-health/


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Canberra, Australia

Other Ghana 8 blogs

Check out my colleagues blogs the, Deiva has links to everyone's blog!

Goodbye's always suck.

Got up early this morning to finish packing and check I have left nothing behind, had breakfast with the team who share the excitement of either returning home or continuing the adventure. It's always sad to say goodbye, I really enjoyed working with everyone and I'm going to miss the heat, the ultra laid back and relaxed style in Ghana. I invited my teammates to visit Australia and look me up, I hope they do.

The hotel we stayed at, sorry this shot was taken last night, and I was too distracted this morning to take another:



I've grown used to waiting anywhere from 1 hour to 2 hours after ordering a meal for it to arrive, so I'm not sure how I'll go at home where it will feels like the food jumps on you it will be so quick. I'll even miss grilled chicken and Jollof rice :)

On the way over, my driver enlightened me that Grasscutter is a delicacy in Ghana, and many countries and even regions outside Accra do not allow Grasscutter to be killed and eaten. I'm very pleased I tried it, but I won't miss it :)

Note to my team mates staying on - jewelry at the airport after you pass through customs is significantly cheaper than in Accra, but they only accept USD or Ghana Cedis, no card services at all. On the other hand wood carvings are ridiculously expensive compared to the markets.

Addis Ababa airport in Ethiopia is a medium size airport, probably double the size of Ghana's airport. It is also a smoking airport which was awful until my flight number came up and then. I could move into the gate area which was non-smoking. Lucky I checked the flight number and time as my ticket says 2:10am, but the flight was actually midnight!! Anyway, my carry on luggage is 180grams lighter as I helped myself to a double decker bar :). Oh, and no selectable movies or in-seat tv screens on these flights :), lucky I made my way through "The Hunger Games". It's kept me interested, but it's not a great book - jumps a fair bit and doesn't develop the characters much. Maybe it's aimed at a different audience, either way, I havn't been inspired to read the next 2 books in the trilogy. It's kinda junk. Battle Royale is far grittier and more believable, and it's a movie.

The movie on the plane was "7 Days in Utopia", it was ok, but failed to really stir the sportsman spirit that those movies are meant to do. Filled in some time anyway. Those passengers interested in the film, could watch their nearest screen in the roof or on the exit row wall.

Made it to Bangkok airport, damn time goes slow for the first half of long plane trips, then the second half seems to improve. Well, this is a much bigger and more modern airport. I was delighted to find I could get a haircut, shower and a massage all on the 4th floor at the day hotel. No, I did not take the happy ending option, but not for lack them asking I don't know how many times. She seemed to get the point when I pointed out my wedding ring, but even that seemed a poor excuse why not. Different Values I guess. I didn't realize that even in the airport, after paying the price, about $120 all up, they still wanted tips. All I had was an Australian $10 note, so they took that. Oh well, it was worth it to be able to freshen up and to face the last part of the trip, one more nearly 9 hour flight, and then a 50 minute flight to Canberra and I can finally crash!

Yippee! I got an exit row seat by the window for the flight from Bangkok to Sydney. ahhh, leg room and quick exit at Sydney! This flight should feel a bit quicker than the last now.

First Movie I decided to watch was Chronicle. Where do they make this rubbish? And who in their right mind funds it? Followed by The Vow which I thought would be a comedy but turns out to be a chick-flick, ugh, think I'll pass on the movies home.

So instead, I wonder if my team at home will mind if I hiss at them when I want their attention, or making a kissing noise to tell them to watch out for something? Maybe we could pray together before we start the salary reviews? I'll miss some of the other "eeeaaa!", and "eh?", and a chuffed "oh! oh! oh!" expressions used in conversation and meetings as feedback to what is being heard too.

I never had to think about where to get a taxi Accra, they constantly came past and tooted and hissed to get our attention. Having to wait for a taxi is going to be a rude reality. I won't miss hearing "I'll be right there", and either not turning up at all, or coming hours later :). But even that was fun!

Our favourite Ghanaian song was called Azonto (I think), and I bought the CD, along with a few other songs that grew on me. I hope I did remember to pack it. Ghanaian's enjoy a music style called Hip-Life which is a mix of Hip-Hop and High-Life. It's only a matter of time before the next Lady Gaga or someone rips this off and we see something catering for Western tastes.

It's about now I'm looking out my window and waving to Dale and Cassia as we fly over NT and Central Australia. Hey guys, couldn't you hear me calling out? Raw hide!

With a couple of hours to fill in before we land in Sydney, I thought I'd try one more movie, Haywire. It has some big names, but unfortunately, still unrealistic rubbish.

Yahoo, Sydney! It put a smile on my dial to be able to switch my phone back on and get a 3G connection, and to see a bunch of SMS messages come in. Thanks Al for your SMS! It's like coming home to old friends!

Made it through Customs with all my souvenirs too! I declared everything. And showed everything to the Customs officer and it was ok to bring in, great! Last flight to Canberra now, how exciting!!

Phew, they don't give u much time at Sydney airport. I make it to my gate with 2 minutes to spare by the time the transfer bus arrives and gets us around to Domestic from International. And I thought 2 hours would be plenty of time!

Flying in the dash-8 back to Canberra the first thing that strikes me is how green everything is here in Australia, the red fields of Ghana replaced with green. The second thing is how neat our housing is built compared to the sometimes random looking clusters of buildings in Ghana.




- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Ghana Airport

Gold five to Red leader, we have a hit!

Presentation day. I'm getting up early so there is plenty of time to get ready.

The published start time was 9am, and we kicked off about 9:30am, the room was full again, and all our presentations went well, stimulating lots of healthy questions and discussion. Our risk presentation was very well received, having less text on slides and providing some local proverbs meant our presentation was easier for the audience to digest, but the real clincher was some of the bold recommendations we made where we pinned recommendations to a specific role, or made recommendations for who should be held accountable for finding someone to fill a role. This last action is part of the Ghana culture - as IBM is held in such high regard, there was an expectation we would make some bold statements, and this earned us the respect of the audience. Phew, we didn't know how that was going to go down.

When it came to question time, we had a number of people make passionate statements that supported our recommendations, hooray, we must have hit a few chords, it so easily could have gone the other way. But the real proof is what happens next. Without taking our work and managing risk as part of an ongoing activity, this work will quickly become redundant. We feel confident they will - especially some of the comments that have come back.

15 minute break, our group was up next:




Following the main event, we provided gifts to our drivers and key stakeholders, and then needed to hang around for final interviews with the film crew. I was hoping to pickup some final souvenirs, and by 6:30pm I got my chance, yippee! I picked up the last of the souvenirs I needed, and then headed to the mall where the team had decided we would have dinner at Rhapsody's, and Italian and African restaurant. Given I'm flying out tomorrow, I played it safe with my meal, and got spaghetti bolognese - sort of, the bolognese was more orange than red.

Sri, Thiago, and Deiva finally work up the courage to wear their Ghanaian shirts, given to us as a thank you gift from our customer:




Finally, Happy Birthday Shaun!! For Saturday.

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana

'Twas the night before Christmas...

We finished our final document at 8:30pm this evening, phew! Comparing it to other risk plans, it certainly stands up as an excellent plan, coupled with what we hope will be a stellar presentation tomorrow. I needed a boost this evening to finish those last grueling paragraphs, it was like lead weights attached to my arms. So I dared the milo in a can. It was alright. I had terrible visions it may have been milo and soda, but was relieved to find it was just normal milo and milk, no fizz.





That's Thiago hard at work correcting my mistakes by the way. Made more difficult as it was a German keyboard -QWERTZ not QWERTY, and don't even get me started on the accented characters! Just one of the challenges of working in an international team.

Speaking of which, I learned this week why all directions given to taxi drivers don't use street names etc. The streets do have names here, but you describe where you want to go as left by the woman selling yams, or next to the big round about. Even from the other side of the city, they know what this means. OK, can you guess why? Well, the majority of the taxi drivers can't read. Anyway, back to work.

Presenting starts at 9am, so I will be up early to iron a shirt and pants, polish my shoes, scrub up, read through our presentation again. We will be the last to present this time, so we will have the tired audience to dazzle and liven up. I know our work is good, but no one will see that until after the presentation, hence we will be judged based on what happens tomorrow.

We are scheduled to finish by 3pm, but we all expect that to extend. I'm hoping to grab a few last souvenirs tomorrow night, which will be my last chance as I'm one of the first to fly out Sat noon. I am not looking forward to the 46 hours of flights and airports to get home, that is just cruel! I must have upset someone.

At the same time as being excited about presenting tomorrow (4 weeks of intense focus and dedicated work goes on show) it's also the end of this chapter which creates a bit of a pensive atmosphere. We've just scratched the surface of getting to know Ghana, it's culture, and it's norms. The weekend trips were critical to understanding what it's like to be Ghanaian, which was then applied to our work, and business contacts during the week.

So, a man dies and goes to hell. When he gets there he sees there is a hell for every country, and he can choose which one he wants to go to. So he asks what happens in the Australian hell, and is told well we put you on the electric chair for an hour, then we put you on a bed of nails for an hour, then the Australian devil whips you to within an inch of your life for the rest of the day. Not being too keen on that, he then asks about the American, German, Brazillian, Hong Kong, Indian, Singaporean, Chinese, and Irish hells to learn they all offer the same treatment. About now he notices a long line-up for the Ghanaian hell, so asks what happens there. He is told, we put you on the electric chair for an hour, then we put you on a bed of nails for an hour, then the Ghanaian devil whips you to within an inch of your life for the rest of the day. "But that is the same as all the others" the man protests, "why are so any people lining up"?

"Because there is never any electricity for the electric chair; the nails were paid for but never supplied, so the bed is quite comfy; and to top it all off, the Ghanaian devil used to be a civil servant. So he comes in, signs his time sheet, and then goes back out on private business for the rest of the day".

I thought I would share that Ghana joke with you, it came from a book called "Ghana - Culture Smart!" by Kuperard. Very useful book if you are planning a visit to the Gateway to Africa, Ghana.

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Independence Ave,Accra,Ghana

Wednesday, T-2 days.

"A team of IBM's top experts..", that's how a preview of a press release for our final presentations on Friday starts. To be printed in papers across the country. There was lots of discussion by our customer around the wording to be used elsewhere in this document, but the high esteem and prestige IBM is held with was acutely obvious. Plenty of pressure on our results, the IBM CSC program is seen as world class and our deliverables the catalyst of success for the next 5 years of health reform.

To give you another interesting snippet from the release, "Since 2008, nearly 1,500 IBM employees based in 50 countries have been dispatched on more than 150 team assignments in 30 countries". So I encourage all IBMers to consider joining the CSC program sometime in their career, it's an experience you won't forget, and for me the appeal was being able to make a direct difference for someone, going beyond making a donation (which is also very good and needed), but I wanted more. I hope our final deliverable satisfies and lives up to the significant reputation IBM CSC holds.

Today was spent presenting our findings to a working group, prior to the big event Friday. What we've learnt from this, is our presentation is boring. So we spent an hour out of our afternoon to spice it up with Ghanaian proverbs, and photos from the experience. We finished up at 7pm, but met up with other teams to work on an IBM task given to us, to review the work we have done on the IBM CSC assignment, and eventually finish up at 9:30pm. We play hard on the weekends, but we work hard during the week. Tomorrow is the last opportunity to finalize our work now, Friday morning the show opens. I promised to wear my Ghana shirt today, and I did:




If you take out all the exotic food and sites we've experienced, this assignment has provided equally incredible insights into how IBM operates worldwide (all the same issues folks), and peoples different working styles. I am leaving with at least 3 new ways of addressing work thanks to my team mates. In addition, there is the experience gained with working in a totally different culture, with quite senior people, and needing to achieve an in-depth result in a very specific timeframe. An experience not easily replicated.

- from my German colleague - it would have been easier if it was all in German.

- from my US colleague (from New York) - We should have worked through the night in the first week to get it all done.

- from my Brazillian colleague - you know, we should Salsa in the breaks.

Everyone has been working relentlessly on this project, and all of us have applied a different coping strategy to the work, it's been very interesting to be a part of, I like Brazil's calm, but methodical and relentless approach to the problem - Thiago has kept our stress levels at normal, despite the workload, and has infected the group with calm determination. Thiago's quiet confidence and results remind me of Ricardo Semlers auto-biography - radically reformed Semco in Brazil that have influenced corporations since, if you are interested his book is called 'Maverick', and it certainly challenges the 9-to-5 grind. Thiago is our happiness officer.

Amy from New York has been our driving force, pushing us to get just a little more done each day, and thank goodness, or I wouldn't be writing blogs now, we would be working through the night. Amy has also been our communications officer, and handled all the meetings, driver pickups/drop offs etc. Amy has a wonderful upbeat fast-paced approach to everything, she brings energy into the group and gets us over the line. Amy demonstrates how one person can make such a difference to the performance of a team, PMs note - fake it till you make it, but you are the key to the climate in your project :)

Petra from Germany has been key to ensuring our work was firmly on target to meet the deliverables and goals of the SOW. Petra provided executive focus to the assignment, but despite her seniority in her day job, has allowed us to work through problems and guided us to the right conclusions rather than taking over and providing the answers. I've been thinking how I an apply this myself, it takes a lot of patience and a quiet self-assurance to get right, and I jump too fast to just giving the answer so we can move on. Petra told us a story of a professor she studied with while working on her doctorate, where this professor advised if you average just 2 glasses of wine a day over a year, then you are classified as a drunk. Does that make Petra our brilliant, but resident drunk? I guess that makes Petra our loyalty officer :)

And me, well the group say lots of nice things about me bringing the project management/risk management methodology and guiding them through it. I've enjoyed presenting our work to our stakeholder groups, and in the early days leading stakeholder discussions/interviews that we mined risks from. I'm the project manager :)

I wish I had more time now, high performing teams are addictive to be a part of. What helped us is having a clear and common goal from the start, leveraging off one another's strengths (no one person can always be right), being prepared to look at problems from another's point of view, consider alternatives, and being focused on the outcome. This is a good lesson learned for how to document and apply this for project kick offs.

Enough already.

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Duade St,Accra,Ghana

Stay on target...

Phew, another big day preparing our final deliverables. Aside from lunch, we didn't see sunshine today, thoroughly buried in documenting our process for risk management, deciding what we want to include in the main body, what goes into an appendix. The hardest job is starting with a blank page and adding content. Once content is there, it's easy to criticize a document, but the real work is building it from nothing. Once we overcame that blank page hurdle, the content started to materialize quite easily, then our new problem was ensuring we kept our content relevant. Everyone on the team has read sections of documents titled "Strategy" and been frustrated that the text bears no resemblance to strategy at all, but very much tactical or operational guff. The last thing we want is our customer to read an example like that and dismiss the rest of the document as if the author doesn't know what strategy is, why should the reader trust they know anything about the rest of the topic at all? Our document should be good, but tomorrow is going to be another busy day.

Lunch today was very interesting. I tried another local Ghanaian dish called FuFu with chicken soup. Fufu looks like Banku, but it is made from Plantain and cassava instead of fermented maise and tastes more like mash potato. It's not sour, and is served in spicy soup, similar tasting to a Laksa. It was good, but very filling. I need to upload pictures from my iPhone to show you, but unfortunately WiFi access is still not working at the hotel. I also had the fortune to be able to try Grasscutter today as Gerrard set the pace for the Australians by braving Fufu in Grasscutter soup. Grasscutter has the same texture as goat and similar but much stronger flavor, very gamey. The taste stayed with me for about 30 minutes after, even the spicy soup couldn't kill it :). I can't wait for a beef kebab on the BBQ and lamb chops!! I think I dreamt of them last night :)

For those who have kept up with the blog, you know a Grasscutter is a giant rat in these parts, and considered a delicacy. Here is a picture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grand_aulacode_male.jpg




- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Morocco Rd,Accra,Ghana

Monday, final week.

We need to leave the Airport View Hotel this morning, and check progress at our original hotel, the Orchid. As well as that, I need to shave and get some work clothes - when we picked up essentials the dust was thick, and no one wanted to spend more time than necessary in that cloud. I will miss the shower though, small, but worked well. Breakfast this morning was baked beans on sour dough toast, I'm looking forward to the bread I'm used to again, the novelty is wearing off :)

There was no Internet available again last night, 3G or WiFi. Maybe Vodafone are doing some upgrades, or fixing whatever went wrong the other night. It's ok, we move on, but it is also frustrating, and I think everyone will appreciate how available our Internet is at home after this.

The big event today was our presentation to help train our key stakeholders in the specifics of the Risk Management we are implementing, and share with them an early view of our top risks. As part of our preparation, we met with the IBM Country Manager for Ghana, Mr Joe. Mensah. The advice was very valuable and will immensely help our final presentation - however, our workload just spiked! Agghhh, its more of that eating brussel-sprouts problem - very good for us, but I hate the taste!

My...that's a few seats!





The meeting was scheduled for 4pm, and we kicked off around 4:40pm once the key people had arrived (Ghana Time). If the level of engagement and questions and responses between the attendees is a sign of success, then the presentation was very successful. More brilliant feedback and tips, we need to update our presentation with a fix to one of the risks currently too wordy and confusing, to draw on more real life examples, and include a condensed method of identifying risks that anyone could use. This has been a key opportunity to learn what we can do better before our final presentation. We get another practice with a Working Group on Wednesday, and then final presentation Friday. We finished up at 7pm tonight, and that is probably indicative of this week. Thank goodness we are as prepared as we are, or we would have been in for a hell week this week.



- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Duade St,Accra,Ghana

The last Sunday

We start our last Sunday in Ghana Sitting on our bus, listening to one of the radio DJs explain how "Impossible" is just someone else's opinion. There is a lot of those sorts of messages over here, the whole country seems to be propping one another up to succeed and reach for more.

Our first stop this morning is James Town, the original port of Ghana built by the British, and today the poorest part of Accra. The group wanted to do a tour, but the locals were not pleased to see us, or have photos taken. I'll upload some photos from my iPhone once I get a chance. James Town is a fishing village today, but our guide advised the residents do not pay anything to the government, this town is a free home for anyone who wants to live here. Inside the village, a micro economy is at work, residents swapping or purchasing ocean catches from one another, and vegetables and condiments. On more than a few occasions a resident would call out to us with an unpleasant expression on their face, and our guide yelled back something followed by "Pretend to be nice"! Instantly, frowns turned to smiles and waves of hello. I was wondering what the reception would be like without our guide, and the guide's assistant following us from behind - was that just to ensure we didn't get lost, or was it for our protection?



Independence Square, Ghana became Independent from Britain in 1957:






Ghana sports stadium:


Ghana football stadium, seats 45,000 spectators:







Last stop for Sunday, Bojo beach, where half the fun is getting there. Our bus bounced, and rolled, and heaved and sighed on the unmade road to get there. It was worth it and the 8 cedi's to enter Bojo Resort, where we will take a canoe across to the beach island, and spend a glorious afternoon in the sun and calm sea. Sunday afternoon's don't come much better than this.















- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Castle Rd,Accra,Ghana

Makola Market Madness

Imagine an entire inner-city suburb is a market place. Now quadruple the number of stalls, narrow the streets to a little more than 2 people wide, and add 5 levels high of stalls as what might have been apartment blocks or offices have all been converted to market space. This is just the beginning of the Makola Market experience. This is where the locals go to shop, everything from mobile phones, clothes, imports, to smoked fish, and giant snails. The butcher is here too, bloody carcass lying sprawled across the stall, meat clever at the ready for any cut you want. But there is no refrigeration here, aside from what the shade offers. I bought shoe polish and a brush for 1 Cedi 20, which is about 70 cents. What an experience! It's like being in the world's biggest mosh-pit! The whole city is a market, you can truly get lost here, especially in the undercover rabbit warren of stalls.

We managed to get back to the bus for another visit to the art and cultural centre market for souvenirs. Now Internet in all of Ghana was down, and has been down since last night, broadband, wifi, 3G - all out. But just as we rock up here, internet comes back, complete with instructions from Vanessa for colored bead necklaces! There is a conspiracy going on here. I take a deep breath, grit my teeth, and dive into the melee of haggling and soliciting. Having successfully stalked my prey and returned with my bounty, I jump back into our bus expecting praise for my selfless bravery, but alas further instruction is waiting for me....."and earrings"!!! The nerve! The abuse!




Next stop is the natural history museum for a cultural experience. No cameras allowed in here. Lots of interesting artifacts for stone age man, articles on passage of rites, a necklace made of human teeth...no matching earings.

Last tourist destination for today, we head off to Arubi, the Hilltop area of the Eastern region to see the botanical gardens. This was a good way to chill out after a busy morning of haggling.

View from the hilltops:








The Botanic gardens:
















Finally we get back to the hotel, however there are renovations taking place and the air is so thick of dust from whatever is being ground off the walls, we can't see from one end of the hotel hallway to the other. They did give us a note to say they were doing some work, but the letter was a major understatement of what is happening. The rooms thankfully have avoided getting a lot of the dust in them, but it is slowly leeching through, so we've had to pack up and move to another hotel for 2 nights. This room is more expensive, but much smaller and less facilities, however much better shower water pressure!

My new little room:




Dinner was at a place called Buka that specializes in local cuisine. Tonight I tried Waakye, which is fried rice with beans in it, and of course, grilled chicken. The condiments were a chilli based sauce, very spicy, and Shito which seems to come with everything!

Waakye:





- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Fifth Avenue Extension,Accra,Ghana

Friday, week 3, oh my!

We had a fantastic storm at around 3:30 AM this morning. Thunder, sheet lightning, and a torrent of water came down, like a fire hose! An impressive show, and so considerate to rain at night so that our days continue to be fine :). Our driver told us everyone is happy today as that was the big rain, and now it would just rain lightly for the rest of the wet season.

Most of the team have had enough of cooked breakfasts now, opting for cereal and fruit instead. Personally, if I never see another Plaintin again, I won't be too upset. I'm all Plaintined out. By the way, I've since found out Plaintin is in the banana family, but you can't peel them and eat them, in fact they can't be eaten raw at all without really upsetting your innards. They are bigger than a banana, with a less strong flavor.

Today we head out of town to visit a teaching hospital and conduct more interviews and mine for more risk mitigations. The teaching hospital is a real hospital, people were lined up out the door to see a health professional. Sorry no pics, that would not be appropriate. The professor we interviewed today gave us a stern reality check regarding Malaria however. The advice was, whether or not we think we have been bitten by a mozzie, we will have been and will be carrying the Malaria parasite by now. If we stopped our medication, we would probably become sick at this point. So the advice was to stay on our meds, but take an anti-malaria anyway to ensure we get it out of our bloodstream before returning home. I might look into that next week, apparently it's a 3 day thing. Once home, I'll be getting a blood test to be sure! It's the only way to tell, aside from actually getting sick.

We had a very productive day, and got to see some parts of Accra that we had not seen before.


The old/original side of the city, heading to Korlebu:



Shops:



Old Accra:



Currently there is a rule in Ghana where no one is allowed to play music loud for 4 weeks leading up to a big festival (Independence Day) when music will be played very loudly. God needs peace to concentrate on the festival, so if authorities catch you playing loud they confiscate all your equipment, even if you are playing loud in church!

We started a 8am today, and finished at 7pm, and only then because the seamstress had returned with our new clothes. You'll have to wait till next week to see that! It's not so outrageous though, I don't want to talk it up too much.

We have finished the week with our risk mitigations completed, having made a start on the final plan document, and nearly completed a PowerPoint deck for a risk training workshop we are hosting on Monday afternoon. My head hurts! But it will be worth it by the end of next week.

Being Friday night, it's very exciting, I get to talk to Vanessa and Natasha again if WiFi holds out long enough! It is Saturday morning back in Canberra, and Friday night here in Ghana. WiFi is very unreliable :)

This weekend we'll be touring around Accra, visiting the Botanical Gardens, and going to another beach. It was a choice between waterfalls and Monkey sanctuary, and this. The consensus in the end was that we have been living in Accra but still didn't know much about it, so we would spend our last weekend together exploring what has been home for the last 3 weeks. It does not feel like 3 weeks already!

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Old Accra, Ghana

Thursday Risk Mitigation

Gosh, our assignment is certainly the big one, so much content to get through. We continued coming up with mitigation plans today for our 12 critical risks (increased by 1 today after one of our Interviews). We are also running a training session on Monday now to ensure our key stakeholders have expertise in the methodology we have used, and can continue assessing and logging risks after we have departed. That's another presentation to get ready for, on ptop of finalizing our deliverable and preparing our final presentation, so no chance of boredom for us :)

Our interviews today provided some reassurance that we are on the right track and that our final deliverable is going to meet expectations. That's welcome encouragement, as on such a short assignment, there is no time for mistakes or rework now. Our key stakeholders are relieved to hear our 196 risks can be sorted under just 5 categories, and that addressing the 12 critical risks will remove or dramatically reduce negative impacts on a large number of those other risks. Of course, this creates a little more work for us to show approx what percentage of risks disappear or reduce after addressing the big 12.

I needed something other than chicken and rice for lunch today, so I had a grilled chicken burger and Jollof rice. Jollof rice is very common in Ghana, it is a spicy sort of fried rice, with a red colour. The spices and I don't always get along, today was no exception. I wonder what my team mates must think :)




IBMers are a diverse lot, we're certainly not all IT evangelists from way back. Two of my team members here for example wanted to be vets. One went on to gain a CPA and is a very talented finance guru, the other achieved a doctorate in chemistry, yet both fell into a long career with IBM, the Dr now running the Daimler account (a car company)! So you just can't judge these amazing people. Bringing this talent together is what makes us great, my role is to bring everyone back down to humble peasant reality :). Actually, it's been a pleasure to bring the project management skill to bear for the team, and help/show everyone the path to risk management. In our first week, I was doing a lot of talking, but my team are now the masters, they are taking this further and making it better every day. In kind, I'm learning about global management from them, IBM, and about people and values. It might take a while for it to all sink in, but it is an incredible experience bringing all this together in one place.


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana

Workers Day

Workers Day is a public holiday on 1st May each year in nGhana. It looks similar to our labour day, celebrating workers rights. So no one is at work today. We are using the time to visit another orphanage, and the Accra Beach.


First stop was Frafrah Orphanage, its not as well off as the SOS Orphanage, and a little more remote. You can see pics of the area around this place below (and more shops). Here is a pic:



This time it was us who were a bit more shy to start with, maybe everyone was a bit taken back by the difference in what SOS had compared with here. These 35 kids didn't have much, a school currently getting an extension, two dirt playfields, a mini bus donated by a German firm. It didn't take long however, until we were out on the dirt field playing kick to kick with the soccer ball, african dancing comps, and tickle-chasey. This time I joined in all the games and had a great time, but I didn't have my video camera with me. It was a hot day, sweat was pouring.







Next stop was the beach in Accra. Being a public holiday, we needed to pay 5 Cedi to get on the beach, and then I think most of Accra was there with us. The water was like warm bath water, incredible! The beach is lined with chairs and shelter from the sun, and no shortage of people asking us to follow them so they can have us sit in their area.


Once you choose a spot to sit, you need to purchase a drink, so I had a passion fruit/malt soda. Every drink seems to have malt in it here, like every restaurant serves grilled chicken and rice :). If anyone wanted, you could pay for a horse ride up and down the beach, but I had more fun relaxing in the sun, and having lots of people stare at the funny-looking white guy. Greenpeace doesn't seem big here, so no one came running down the beach singing "Save the whale" and trying to roll me back in to the ocean :)


Dinner was at a very nice hotel resort by the beach, and aside from losing Gary for a few minutes, the other highlight was Deiva's ice-juice purchase. Ice-juice is orange and pineapple juice with a scoop of ice-cream on top. But a spoon wasn't supplied to scoop the ice cream out with, however when the table suggested mixing it up, Deiva replied "...But I don't like them mixed"!? He's a funny guy - ordering a mix he doesn't like so he can separate them later :)


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Frafrah, Ghana

More Risk!

Wednesday was another full day of evaluating our risks. We have now divided them into 5 categories to help communicate the large volume to our audience, and have started putting mitigation against each of them. We should finish mitigation for our primary risks tomorrow, and will then start the final Risk Plan document, and our final presentation. Our mitigation looks at not only what could be done to prevent this risk, but also what could be done if this risk occurs and the government is forced to deal with the risk. Brainstorming mitigation actions with everything we have learned over the past 2.5 weeks takes lots of mental power, we finished up this day exhausted!

To ensure we end with a quality product, we are trying to organize second interviews with the key people we spoke with. In these second interviews we talk about each of the primary risks and what these key people would do to mitigate them. The work we have done on risk mitigation serves as a prompter to help get some people started, others already have ideas on how they would like to see the risks handled.

Today we had an interview setup for 10am, which got pushed to 11.30am, and then 12pm, and then not at all. Petra, on our group, however managed to convince our reluctant customer to meet with us tomorrow. It helps to have sales professionals in your group, used to working through what it is the customer wants so they will talk to us. We didn't lose time however, as we have an office on these premises and could continue our work from there. Unfortunately the AC was out, and while we got some relief from a ceiling fan, it was mental Olympics staying engaged and actively listening in the humid heat.

During our lunch break, we quickly jumped into a supermarket (Koala), which wouldn't be much to talk about, except they had Double Decker bars! We don't get them in Australia, it's a Cadbury invention in the UK, and they are just short of awesome! So I bought a whole box to bring back as my whole family will want them :). Baggage weight might be an issue at this point, my carry on bag is going to be heavier than my suitcase at this rate!


- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana