Initiating the Knowledge Transfer Prior to Yael’s Departure
Delivering on expectations is at the heart of any Deloitte engagement. This was further reinforced during my MBA experience through the multi-disciplinary action program (essentially an additional internship), throughout course projects, club and other extra-curricular activities. It is not only expected, but it seems to be a part of the DNA of people like myself: ambitious self-starters that are committed to delivering quality results that enhance the value of an organization. I feel even greater pressure to perform in this context when I consider that the outcome has the potential to transform the lives of the Gone Rural artisans and their children, whose lives are scourged by poverty.
At the outset of this project, I defined the project goals for the Student Bursary Fees database as follows:
§ To create a more user friendly tool to capture boMake program data with an emphasis on the Student Fees Bursary Program;
§ To improve the data management process to reduce number of data entry errors;
§ To improve reporting capability; and finally,
§ To create a scaleable database model to accommodate the addition of programs to the boMake program portfolio
In the past week I have been working closely with Yael in order to flesh out the business requirements, create an end-to-end bursary fees process diagram, and develop the system requirements so that I can move onto development. I am beginning to feel that my initial project goals were too aggressive given that I am acting as both the design and development team, and that I really only have one week to complete this portion of the project so that I can deliver value on the procurement side of the project. In the interim, I have decided to reformat the Excel spreadsheets currently used to capture and manipulate the student bursary fees data, cleanse the data, and then convert these to an MS-Access Database. I then plan to create user interface definitions of the end-state solution and transfer design documents and the temporary Excel/Access solution to a local software development firm to develop the final solution. I am confident that my contributions will have an effort, but I can’t shake the feeling that I want to do more. We all joke about extending the project – but it is so tempting. Working with the Gone Rural team has been the unexpected capstone of my educational experience. It is an energizing reminder of my goals of being a progressive business leader.