CSCCan1 heading up to the last week!
Yes, today is October, 20th 2018 — just one more week left until we finish our mission in Halifax, Canada. Definitively, time is kicking us!
As I had expected, the third week was key for the CSCCan1 team. All sub-teams had to end the week by having a high-level solution defined and validated for the clients. It was also important to share their vision on the implementation strategy for the clients to pursue with their transformation initiatives.
As mentioned before, CSC in-country deployment time frame is short, meaning that the project plan has to fit in four weeks with milestones well-defined. That requires all sub-teams to focus on the work to be done for each week, otherwise important milestones might be missed and thus likely impact the whole project.
For the past week, we had to provide the clients with a draft view of the projects’ outcomes otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to get any feedback. At that point, we needed to confirm that we were in the right path and in line to the client’s expectation. Having said that, each team defined its own agenda and ways to engage key stakeholders to do so. In general, good feedback came to all projects, with some adjustments being made for the sub-teams to work on — that is expected in the work plan.
For the next and final week, the amount of work for us to get the projects concluded with the expected deliverables is still huge. Moreover, all sub-teams must be ready for the final presentation at the end of the week.
Frankly, I’m pretty confident that the four projects are in a good shape; from what my mates have told me, our clients are satisfied with the outcomes so far.
For the upcoming weekend, no free time, as we have a busy agenda with activities on Saturday and Sunday for the entire team, as follows:
· Friday night: informal dinner with the team at The Bicycle Thief restaurant;
· Saturday morning: CSC Community Service Day at the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre and with Hope Blooms youth, a local nonprofit organization;
· Saturday night: pot luck dinner with the team at the hotel
· Sunday: tour around Nova Scotia hosted by Nova Scotia Business Inc. (NSBI)
Now, it's time for the highlights of our third week here:
Pumpkin Regatta in Windsor, Nova Scotia
In addition to Cape Breton Island, which we visited last weekend for Canadian Thanksgiving holiday, we decided to plan ourselves for another one-day trip to explore other places in the province. We had heard about the Pumpkin Regatta as being an important event at this time of the year that we shouldn’t miss. So, we decided to check it out!
The Windsor Pumpkin Regatta is an annual water race held in October in Lake Pesaquid, in Windsor, Nova Scotia. The contest is short; about 800m from start to finish. What makes this race special is that it features brightly-colored giant pumpkins as the sole means of flotation. The very first race took place back in the year of 1999.
Windsor was not the first to feature a giant pumpkin as a water-borne craft. That distinction falls to Wayne Hackney from Winchester, New Hampshire, who paddled inside a pumpkin grown by him in 1996. However, the Windsor regatta has inspired several other pumpkin regattas, including one at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (held since 2005) and in Lake Champlain (Colchester, Vermont).
The race was scheduled to start at 2pm. As we had left early in the morning, we decided to make a stop at Peggy’s Cove before heading to Windsor — another incredible place to visit in Nova Scotia. It was also another opportunity for us to enjoy the beautiful landscape of this Canadian province at this time of the year.
CSC NSCC project progress
The 3rd week for my sub-team was intense in regards to our agenda and outcomes that needed to be accomplished. More meetings and interviews with key stakeholders from NSCC team allowed us to get more insights from people with different roles and perspectives within the NSCC organization.
We returned to two NSCC campus, Ivany and Akerley in Dartmouth, for meetings and for a tour in the facilities. We also visited the catering and Hospitality/Tourism School where we had a special lunch with some of the NSCC project team members. The food was tasty and we were able to see the students engaged in getting down to work. That was cool!
We spent some time in some brainstorms sessions with ourselves in order for us to discuss top-user stories and current as well as future ecosystems.
Friday is the weekly checkpoint meeting with NSCC core team. We had prepared an agenda where the main objective was to validate important work products with the team. The meeting went very well, featuring good discussions and positive feedback.
Having said that, I’m glad to announce that the main objective of the week has been accomplished and our project is on track!
Ghost Walk
On Wednesday night, I joined Ana Paula Vedovato Maestrello, who is my CSC mate from Brazil, on a waking tour through historical streets of Halifax called Ghost Walk.
It surprised me a lot because I was expecting some sort of Halloween encounter with people dressed in costumes. Instead, it was a very pleasant tour where a gentle guide could share relevant facts of Halifax history by using his incredible ability as a storyteller.
On top of that, he was also able to use his great ability in sharing stories around people victimized by relevant disasters occurred in Halifax, such as the Tragic sinking of Titanic in 1912 and the Halifax explosion in 1917. Intriguing stories of haunted buildings, troubled spirits, and odd occurrences involved our group of circa 15 people, as well as amused our night (despite somewhat making it a little scary…). Thanks for the invite, Ana, it really was worth it!
Looking forward to sharing with you our last week adventures and achievements. Stay tuned! ;-)
