Tuesday was our midterm presentation and it went really well! We presented a high level overview in the morning to the Chief Operating Officer for IBM Kenya, then in the afternoon presented to our core stakeholders from Millennium Water Alliance, Catholic Relief Services and IBM Research.
In just over two weeks, my team has talked to partners from 10 organizations across the U.S., Netherlands, and Kenya. The challenges in Isiolo are great and our client Millennium Water Alliance has done an amazing job of bringing together donors and expertise from all over the world to tackle water accessibility and sanitation.
Part of our final deliverable is to define the roles and responsibilities across the many partners involved in this program, as well as to define the data required to enable better water management for Isiolo county. In order to get to that, we started by creating a framework for looking at the various types of data needed (water sources data and water consumption data) and the capabilities that would enable (e.g. monitoring, notifications, planning, maintenance, etc.). Presenting this back to a room full of water experts - both from NGOs and scientists from IBM Research - was a bit nerve-wracking as we are doing this based on 2 weeks of interviews and research. But the framework works! The one side of the equation that we haven't heard much about in our interviews to date, but will come up this week is more around sanitation and hygiene (e.g. latrines, education on sanitation, etc.) so we will look to include that and expand upon our framework for the final presentation. As Bob said, "Our presentation went well, but we didn't do shit!"
Introducing our first persona
Ari explaining a RACI matrix for roles and responsibilities
We did go out after our presentation with a few of our clients from MWA, CRS, and IBM to celebrate a successful mid-term presentation and a great team. They Kenyans had us cracking up about some of their airline stories - a Catholic airline where they pray at the start of the flight and you aren't sure if you are in danger or just religious, bolted plastic seats in the plane, assigning seats based on weight to balance things out, doing a flyby the runway to scare the cattle away so they could land the second pass, chasing goats down the runway to clear for takeoff, not being able to sit up straight on the planes because they are too small, and my favorite - helping a pilot change a tire before takeoff!
Celebratory Tuskers
The project has been one of the most interesting and challenging I have worked on and it's truly special to be a part of. We have had to learn quickly about the water space, none of us working on anything like this in the past. We have also had to become data experts as it relates to water because even though none of us would have previously considered ourselves data "experts" or even serious "technologists", the simple fact that we work for IBM and with clients all over the world on projects involving technology often times makes us the most qualified in the room. To put things in perspective, as we met with the head of IT for the county, we learned that most government officers don't have a computer, and if they do they really would only know how to use a web browser. Most don't even use email, still relying on phone calls and in person meetings. Bernard estimated he takes 200 phone calls per day because no one uses email.
Another interesting fact, which I don't think I mentioned yet, but Kenya created the 47 counties just two years ago. This "devolution" has empowered the counties to set up their own laws and policies and capabilities, but is in the very nascent stages. Imagine in the US if we just created the 50 states and they had no laws and policies in place, people taking office for the first time, no systems or processes set up, everything previously being managed at the national level and the capital being the main focus. That is exactly the situation in Kenya today. When we went to Isiolo, we heard first hand that they finally feel "Kenyan" as they have an important role in improving the lives of the people of their county. Now it is just a matter of helping them execute it so they can stand on their own two feet.
During this assignment we have had to adjust our working style and expectations in order to be effective. You take four Type A IBMers who were selected in an elite leadership development program and obviously we were all ready to run 200 miles per hour for four weeks straight. After just our first day or two we realized this style wasn't going to work and we would need to spend a lot more time bringing our partners along with us in order to really learn and understand the challenges and the politics of the project. Luckily Bob on my team is a relationship manager (and clearly one of the best!) so his leadership skills and ability to stay on top of communications and building relationships has gone a long way.
Not an unusual photo of Bob on two phones at once organizing our meetings and logistics.
Tomorrow (Thursday) my team goes back to Isiolo to meet some of the community members. When we went last time they had to cancel our community visit due to a conflict in the area and we were all greatly disappointed. Days are limited to complete our work and our project, but we all felt really strongly that meeting the actual people whose lives we are impacting will be one of, if not the most important activity we do during our assignment. So while none of us are particularly thrilled about another 10 hours in a van, we are all really excited to meet the communities.
With just 6 working days left before our final presentation (5 if you discount our day in Isiolo), we are in good shape but lots of work left to do! We are on the right track to delivering something great and lasting for MWA and Isiolo and we are really excited!
Molly
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