#senegal4

Today we worked from the hotel for the entire day.

We at first worked on Scope of Work to be finalized. We organized the information collected during the entire week and feedback from Bob and Marie on Thursday, we finalized SOW and ask Plan International people to have a look at it.

After that, we created task list based on project deliverables on SOW, and started research on tools to make wish-list activities happened.

This is us working at the hotel. I appreciate that Plan International people allowed us to work at the hotel because my health condition was not 100% good during this week.

After the work, we went out to enjoy Friday night altogether.

This is us, enjoying dinner. The place, Chez Fatou, is cozy place just next to the ocean, and food was also good.

This is me, enjoying the sound of ocean, and missing Japan already.. (kidding)

Today we started working at the hotel in the morning. Created task list, and decide person in charge, and started working. I will be in charge for Business Process Map and setting of “Roles and Responsibility” of each members including Plan International, ADMG, EVE, and Youth Group.

In the afternoon, we went to the city hall of Pikine and met members from ADMG, EVE, and Youth Group members.

This is us after the meeting. I want to thank them to gather at city hall to have discussion with us. Their attitude towards this project work always makes me feel devote myself to this activity more and more.

Also from 4pm, we could see mayor of Pikine and had discussion with him too.

It was great honor for us to have him, even a short period of time, I really appreciate him and his office to spare time with us.

Today we worked at the hotel.

Mainly I worked to create business process map, and tool examination to make the solution happen.

This is how it looks like. I try to make it simple, but has enough information for new members or interns to be able to understand the business flow easily.

This is us trying hangout function for online meeting. We tried Facebook too and tried to organize pros/cons of each tools.

You can see 3 Mauricio’s faces in a picture, 1 is the real face, 2 is big one on the screen, and 3 is small one at right bottom.

Productive day indeed, and the feeling we are coming close to the goal to achieve is very important for us too after examining SOW.

We will come to the office to have debriefing with Plan International people, and then meeting with mayor of DTK in the afternoon.

Today we had a kick off meeting, inviting 4 NGOs (host organizations), stakeholders, IBM Senegal people altogether.

Here we are Senegal 4 - Subteam 3, working for Plan International Senegal.

After introducing CSC overall introduction, we had brief explanation from each host organizations. These presentations were really helpful to think about the solutions, because some of organizations are ahead, and struggling with their new challenges. Their current concern will be the others’ next concern.

After that, each group has 1st session (other than telephone conference before we came to Dakar) deepening Scope of Work (SOW). Here we are all into discussions. With this session, we have heard that;

- Knowledge management is one of their concerns. - They want to have “communication platform (hub)” rather than “data platform.”

Today we had a day-long orientation with Tidiane, Barbara, and Sidi. I just wanted to keep this note while my memory is fresh.

This is the picture from activity with architectures/engineers and here are my thoughts over the activity.

- Clients do not really know VERY CLEARLY on goals or visions of what they actually want to do/achieve.

- Even if goals/visions are clear enough, it is hard to tell them accurately to people not themselves, and even to make them happen in real.

- The only wan you can bridge the lift is to ask questions or to communicate.

- Sometimes you need some other mind/personality to come up with new idea that break the neck.

- “I want it that way” is dangerous. Together with clients, we need to draw pictures of “how we want it to be like.”

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This is brief memo after the activity, but it really means a lot to me before actually working with my clients.

On October 10th, Tuesday, we went to Plan International Office. It is more administrative office rather than the normal office, but to have brief meeting, we went to the office which is 10-15 minutes away by car.

It is me at the front door. They usually start working from 8am - 5pm on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday and 8am to 3:30pm on Friday. This is (probably) because they need to go to Mosque on Friday.

Here we are Plan International members (Monsour and Marie), us, and the translator Ali. We just had half day meeting on Tuesday to talk about the schedule ahead, and we went back to the hotel on that day.

And it all started... I felt really sick in the afternoon, and start coughing/sore throat/fever...

And it became 38.8 degree, which is the highest in my whole life, and spent whole afternoon and evening in my bed. Team members gave me some medicine for cold and sore throat. Felt like many kinds of medicine from all over the world were gathered in my room. And a member from Japan, Hiro, gave me freeze dry soup... I really thank them for everything they did to me and caring to me... :)

This is why I could not update my blog for the first week. I was not absent from work for the entire week, but to live the day is the only thing I could do!