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Steaming ahead with Stream work

This blog was written by Felicity Bainbridge. Felicity is a current member of the CDC graduate scheme.

One of the reasons why a career with Capgemini Consulting was initially so appealing was because of the emphasis that it places on people. This is an integral part of the company and is visible in client work, throughout the larger business and to a greater extent – within the CDC.

To develop business leadership, core consulting and people skills every CDCer is a member of a particular ‘stream’. Stream ‘work’ is in addition to client work and we set aside 4 hours a week to focus on our individual deliverable (task). Each stream has a stream ‘lead’ (another CDCer) who oversees the work of the stream and reports back to the stream client - a Consultant who helps to scope deliverables and monitors the progress of the stream. We rotate every 3 months so you will have the opportunity to experience most of the streams as well as applying to lead one! So, a brief introduction to the 8 different streams:

Events: What it says on the tin – the Events stream organise and coordinate all the events in the CDC calendar. This is from our monthly FNFS (Friday night of fun socials) to the quarterly CDC Meeting where we all get together for an afternoon of trade shows and discussions.

Recruitment: Deliverables include designing and testing the assessment centre group exercise, creating a graduate marketing questionnaire and organising buddies for the new intakes.

Internal Marketing: Write and send out the CDC Times (newsletter), manage the CDC Awards by collating and delivering a nominations pack, developing the CDCs relationship with the sectors, marketing the new CDC joiners to the rest of the business and finally, organising a rota for writing this blog!

Framework: Maintain the structure of the CDC by facilitating stream lead calls, creating milestone plans and writing the weekly CDC Bulletin. They also update the CDC calendar, manage the stream rotation process and deliver the CDC Census results – an anonymous questionnaire covering all aspects of the CDC which is presented at CDC Meetings.

Learning and Development: Monitor CDC ‘learning’ by organising ‘MySkills’ sessions (presentations delivered by CDCers on topics such as Excel and project roles to upskill others) and ensuring that the CDC follows their required training schedule by attending all mandatory courses.

External: The charity stream! This is wholly committed to running initiatives to support the Myotubular Trust and the Voluntary Police Cadets as well as raising as much money as possible for our charity of the year, Alzheimer’s Research UK. Deliverables this rotation have included coordinating and facilitating the fortnightly Charity of the Year call, running a CCUK eBay project and organising a weekend ASE (Accelerated Solutions Environment).

CCUK: Support the wider Consulting business by updating Silhouette profiles for members of the VPP (internal CVS for the Vice President and Principal Community), conduct external research on internal communication methods and analyse these results to provide recommendations.
Business: Concerned with supporting propositions and capability development across CCUK. This involves looking into the use of innovative tools to capture client assessments and researching how leaders in the digital space use them. The next phase is testing the tools and preparing them for client engagements.

It is important to remember that specific deliverables and required outputs vary for each stream from rotation to rotation. They very much depend on new ideas, different approaches and collaborative group work. Stream work is a great opportunity to cement the tools and training that we’ve been taught in a relatively ‘safe’ environment (not under the watchful eye of clients) and to enhance the community spirit that really does make the CDC a fantastic place to be and an excellent place to start your career!