I think last week was truly a turning point for both our
team and our project. Every day, we came a bit closer to becoming fully
operational and finding a working rhythm both as a team and with our clients.
With the deliverables and requirements defined last week, we
entered the week with a good understanding of what our clients expected. We
began Monday in Rabat, meeting with the Director again to discuss our way ahead.
Like last week, the meetings were conducted primarily in French. As we outlined
our understanding of our deliverables, the Director made it very clear that
governance was a clear priority, even among the three deliverables that were
agreed upon. With that lens, we were set to begin our interviews on Wednesday.
We spent the rest of the day creating a detailed project plan, where we listed
all tasks, deliverables, dates, and assignments. We felt much more comfortable
executing the project on time after those terms were set.
On Tuesday, we were able to begin working at our new office
in Casablanca, the regional bureau for tourism. Thankfully, we are now able to
use this office space every day, which will cut down on the logistics and
travel time to Rabat. We used Tuesday to prepare for the interviews and the
information we would receive. We were set to interview several people who were
responsible for various links of SMIT’s sustainable “value chain”: the process
through which a tourist product has to pass, from conception to operation.
After these interviews, we hoped to have a good understanding of the process
and the data they were collecting to begin crafting the framework.
Also on Tuesday, we had a conversation about how our team
was operating; we discussed what was working well and what we could improve in
order to work more effectively together. We also had an opportunity to share
our personal challenges and goals for this experience. I truly believe that our
team has been lucky in that we are all extremely passionate about the work we’re
doing and the opportunity we have working with SMIT. We also support each other’s development and
goals. The biggest challenge for us was
the language barrier between us and the clients; without consistent
translations from French, it was hard for all of us to feel like we could
contribute to the conversation and ask follow-up questions. We decided that if
we couldn't get an official translator, we would try to keep the conversations
(and interviews) with the client in English if they felt comfortable with that;
if not, those of us who spoke French would stop the conversation periodically
and translate everything real time, so that we could pause and allow enough time
for all of us to ask questions.
It was an extremely enlightening conversation, and I think
that’s why our interviews on Wednesday went as well as they did. Our team was
working extremely well, and the interviews we conducted yielded a ton of new
information that demonstrated, even more clearly, where we could add value to
SMIT. We even had the opportunity to use an IBM tool, Blue Works Live, to
assist us with synthesizing the information we collected and identifying the
gaps. We were able to begin defining the tourist product lifecycle, identifying
the gaps, and seeing where the sustainability indicators could go. I am excited
about the progress we made last week and the opportunity to show it to the
client on Monday.
Overall, we’ve waded through a lot of information (3
interviews and 50+ documents), and we have a good plan ahead. With only 7 or 8
more days before our final presentation, we are about to go through a final
push for our deliverables. 2 weeks down, 2 to go!
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