The time is so close now you can feel it! I am 15 days away from departure. My mind is still in this kinda blur-like state. At our team preparation meeting yesterday we went over our logistics guide, which is a pretty detailed assessment of everything we need to know when we land and how things will be organised. It also had a checklist of what items to bring and some other information which I found in the guidebook that I bought, but it was nice to get confirmation from another source.
Our NGO partner, CDC Development Solutions, has been fantastic in helping us get prepared for the assignment and because they have someone on the ground already in Nigeria, we also get a dose of reality when our imaginations run away with us — or when they they fail to 🙂 And the IBM team has been great as well. We get all of our questions answered – no matter how strange they are. And we get a local perspective as part of our intense cultural preparation.
Last weekend, we had the pleasure to get initial correspondence from our client – and you can feel that they are as excited to work with us as we are with them. Our project team also met for the first time last week (it’s 3 of us on our sub-project) and reviewed our statement of work, asked some questions, and assigned some tasks to be completed. And since two teams are working on two projects with the same client, we will look for synergy. Our really international team (over 12 countries) with our really different cultural and job backgrounds will mesh nicely.
Well….15 days! That is all that remains until departure. And as I type this, I realise that Relaxed Rodney must give way to Planning Rodney. So the first order of business tonight is to take all of these guides and checklists, map out what I need to accomplish to ensure I am prepared (separated by 5 day blocks), and then simply work the plan. Yeah, it is as over-bearing as it sounds. But for a trip like this (Nigeria, plus some time exploring Tanzania), those who are best prepared probably have the best experience 🙂
Until next time.
#ibmcsc Nigeria